Are cloud services secure?
By John Merrey
Cloud services can be a great solution. You can get storage and software without worrying about constant upgrading and replacing local software and even hardware. But with any cloud services, security is always a concern.
So should you be worried about your cloud services and whether they’re secure or not?
Where does the problem lie?
Most reputable cloud providers are secure most of the time. If you’re using Microsoft for Office 365, they’re going to be keeping things secure on their end.
Where we see the most security issues when dealing with cloud services are on the user end of things. In recent years, technology has changed drastically, but we haven’t always adapted our own personal security practices to keep up.
How to keep your cloud services secure
If you want to keep your cloud services secure, there are some best practices to keep in mind.
Watch out for phishing attacks
Yes, phishing attacks are an ongoing problem for businesses that you need to protect yourself from. A successful phishing attack against your organization can result in the attacker gaining access to your cloud services and even locking you out of them.
Have secure passwords
Too many people still have “password” as their password. In fact, it was the second most popular password in 2018. The most popular was “123456”! Your password doesn’t need to be overly complex, but it needs to be secure. A password manager can be a big help with this.
Use two-factor authentication
Just using a secure password isn’t enough. Be proactive and enable two-factor authentication—a.k.a. 2FA—everywhere you can. Functionally, that could involve receiving an email or text each time you log in containing a PIN number, or it could mean using a mobile app like Google Authenticator that creates a PIN dynamically.
Of course, these strategies are just a few relatively easy things you can do to keep your cloud services secure. But if you are concerned, remember that security usually fails at the user level, not at the services level.