Boost IT

IT Management, Cybersecurity, & Cloud

cloud security

Making the Move to the Cloud

by

When is the last time you forgot to backup your work? If you remember working before the cloud, you might have thoughts of your computer crashing and losing several hours of work. Luckily, if you’ve started using the cloud, your changes are automatically saved.

Many businesses are realizing the efficiency in storing data in the cloud – no hardware to buy and the costs are predictable. They recognize that if they use a data sharing service for their data and applications, their data is safe and applications can run even during a power outage.

There are many benefits to moving, but it’s important to evaluate if the features and workflow fits your needs and if their platform meets their cloud security requirements.

Understanding Cloud Security

Before moving, spend some time assessing their security measures and verify it meets your compliance requirements, if any. Don’t assume that security will work the same in the cloud as on your premises, or you might inadvertently increase your risk. Unlike when you do something on premise, the cloud is not something that you just change and let flow. You must stay on top of what the provider is doing, log access to the data, and make adjustments to maintain a secure environment.

While data centers and shared infrastructures are designed with intense security best practices, not all service providers offer the same level of security. Avoid making hasty decisions. Check on locations for data storage centers and how the provider abides by regulations. If it is an overseas data center, understand that the regulations and data privacy policies change depending on the country.

At Boost IT, we offer Endpoint Protection as a cloud-based security solution that is tailored for small- and medium-sized businesses.

Recognizing Cloud Failure

While you look forward to having the convenience of 24/7 access to your data storage from anywhere you connect, that doesn’t mean there’s zero possibility of hardware failure. Businesses understand that failures happen, but they don’t think about the failure of a provider. You don’t want to be the one who mistakenly assumes that public services won’t fail.

The good news is that if there is a failure, most cloud providers have security systems and disaster recovery plans in place to protect your data. So why shouldn’t you feel smug?

Problems with cloud services happen more frequently than most businesses realize. While these problems are typically not critical, businesses need to adapt their applications to these possible outages. If a business has an application for ongoing applications, there should be a logic trigger built into the app. If the app hits a snag, the logic trigger produces an automatic retry instead of shutting down.

Now, what would happen if there is a bigger snag, such as a prolonged failure along the massive, shared infrastructure? How would your business fare if you couldn’t access a website for an app you work on, or if your main data system is inaccessible?

While businesses often have a mitigation plan for their own system failure, they neglect the importance of mitigating the risk of hardware or other failure in the cloud. To help with making sure you have a mitigation plan that addresses the complexities of the cloud while providing solutions for your specific needs, contact Boost IT at 404-865-1289.

Where’s My Data? The Future of Cybersecurity

by

More businesses realize cybersecurity is a necessity. Cybercrimes are on the rise and small businesses are increasingly being targeted. Cybercriminals are becoming savvier and their attacks are becoming increasingly complex. The need to stay on the forefront of information technology and IT skills development increases. Just as important is the need to be prepared and ready to respond to a threat and minimize the damaging effects.

In our last blog Cyberattacks: Why Hackers Target Small Businesses, we talked about the realistic possibility of a cyberattack. While the initial phases of diverting an attack in cybersecurity involve intrusion detection and secure software development, there will always be a risk that will get through even the best detection and development technology.

It’s no longer a question of if you will have a cyberattack but when and how you will counter it. Therefore, it’s critical that cybersecurity include risk identification and mitigation, and cloud security. These areas involve identifying risks, creating a plan of reaction and mitigation, and protecting data. It may sound complicated, but Boost IT has a managed security service that is a simple fix.

Risk Identification and Mitigation

A scary form of attack is cryptolocker, a particularly nasty type of ransomware where your computer and network are hijacked, the data is encrypted, and the cybercrimal demands a fee to unlock it. For more in-depth information, refer to the article The Ransomware Nightmare and Its Real Cost.

It costs companies large amounts of money and can take up a lot of time to unlock hijacked computers after a ransomware attack. Once you get the key, there is no guarantee you’ll get access to your data back. In some cases, your data is wiped clean.

Cryptolocker is one of the biggest risks businesses identify when it comes to data protection. By recognizing the need to plan and developing a risk mitigation plan, businesses can evaluate ways to react by developing a plan of action that helps to reduce the threat.

When developing a plan, the question often asked is, “Where is the data?”

Access to data by only those authorized is vital for the continued operation of the business. Therefore, cybersecurity professionals look at all ways to counterattack and protect the data from a breach so you know exactly how to respond to a threat and thus minimize the damaging effects.

Cloud Security

Knowing how your data is stored, who has access to it and how it is protected is extremely valuable knowledge in the face of cyber risk. Therefore, the future of cybersecurity involves more than preparation and planning against an attack. It involves taking precautions to safeguard your data so it will not be compromised and/or can be recovered in a minimal amount of time so you and your employees can get back to business.

As part of a cybersecurity measure, businesses are increasingly migrating to the cloud for data storage. This helps them to access their data at anytime, anywhere. It eliminates the question of where their data is. But it also causes businesses to rely more on the cloud providers to safeguard their data. However, as the cloud infrastructure develops, it becomes a more lucrative target for cybercriminals. Boost IT has ransomware-resistant cloud products.

As attacks become more possible on cloud systems, the knowledge in cloud security is continuously growing. Keeping up with the complexity and continuous training on cybersecurity is necessary. That is why many businesses are outsourcing cybersecurity to Boost IT. We stay on top of the innovative ways to combat cyberattacks and protect your data. To learn more, contact us at 404-865-1289.