4 Ways Cloud Security Protects your Organisation from Cyberattacks

Since COVID-19’s unprecedented disruption to business, enterprises’ digital security has come under fire like never before. The sudden exit from office-based work was the catalyst for large-scale digital transformation. Organisations were pushed to transition to new ways of working; in some cases, this exposed cracks in their digital armour and operations. This was followed by a surge in hacker activity as cybercriminals moved to take advantage of any weak links left in the wake of disruption.

In a VMware Carbon Black Global Threat Report, 94% of organisations surveyed admitted to a data breach over the last year, and 80% of respondents said attacks have become more sophisticated.

Earlier this year, Amazon Web Services (AWS) reported fending off a record-setting Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attack – an attack designed to flood a website with vast amounts of requests until it crashes. At 2.3 terabits per second, the attack was 44% larger than any previous DDoS attack on the AWS service.

DDoS attacks have increased by an incredible 80% in the first quarter of 2020 compared with the same quarter last year, according to Kaspersky Lab.

It’s clear that COVID-19 has provided an incentive for cybercriminals to step up their game: organisations are under immense pressure to adjust while facilitating greater online collaboration and rapid updates and releases.

A well-designed cloud strategy, however, can vastly reduce the risk of cyber-attacks while helping to cut costs and streamline operations.

Cloud security protects your organisation from cyberattacks in 4 key ways

Secures the server

Traditional networks often lack protection of servers, but cloud web security sends traffic first to the cloud, which uses sophisticated tooling to analyse the traffic and only allows legitimate requests to reach the server.

Encrypts data

Cloud encryption solutions encode data in transit between the user device and hosting platform. It also encrypts data at rest in cloud-based storage, preventing hackers from accessing any data stored in, or moving to or from the cloud. This protection is further enhanced through increased security controls like time bound privileged access and multi-factor authentication.

Analyses and filters data

Traditional systems use applications to filter data before it reaches the server. However, these require extensive upkeep, are expensive, and are at risk of becoming overwhelmed, leading to a blockage of all traffic. Cloud security, however, can be configured to the exact needs of your business with all the rules for filtering traffic configured and managed in the cloud. This reduces upkeep and administration overheads, while keeping your IT running smoothly.

Blocks unwanted traffic

With cloud security, you can restrict hosting to a specific geographic location and prevent access from outside that area, as well as place applications in a private cloud, which only IP addresses with authorisation can access – this helps evade unwanted actors.

These cutting-edge cloud security strategies are a few of the crucial ways in which businesses can protect their employees, reputation, data and customers from cyberattacks. And organisations operating in the cloud not only benefit from remaining ahead of the growing cyber threat, but also gain a competitive advantage with reduced costs and more elastic, agile ways of working.

For further information on how to optimise for cloud, read our Organising For Cloud Insights report.

UBDS enables organisations to transform to modern, digital, secure ways of working. With a reputation for achieving transformational outcomes for our clients and repeat business orders, we offer the technologies and processes needed to help organisations thrive in the digital age.

If you would like a consultation on how you can boost your organisation’s cloud security and digital operations, contact us at hello@ubds.com.