6 key benefits of a secure cloud

Security will always remain the most important issue in any conversation about the cloud.

• 51% of IT executives believe that the level of data security in the cloud is higher than in corporate data centers.
• 58% of IT executives consider a public cloud the most secure, flexible, and cost-effective solution for their organizations.
• According to Gartner, in 2020 the amount of computing resources sold in the cloud will exceed the amount of computing resources in local customer data centers.

Understanding the unique benefits of a secure cloud is the first step for solving the problems that security and compliance professionals face in your organization. Therefore, we suggest to familiarize with the basic principles of cloud security and the benefits of a secure cloud. 

1.Strict security and compliance controls

When you choose a cloud provider, remember that you will incorporate many of its security controls into your own compliance and certification programs. If they are correct, they can significantly reduce the cost of your security efforts. To make sure that you choose the right supplier, look for third-party verification: globally recognized best practices and safety certificates, as well as industry certificates.

Examples of such controls include internationally recognized best practices and security certifications, such as ISO 27001, ISO 27017 for cloud security, ISO 27018 for cloud privacy and SOC 1, SOC 2 and SOC 3. The right provider will also offer services that will help you achieve compliance with HIPAA or PCI-DSS requirements and will receive many public sector certificates thanks to FedRAMP and DoG SRG in the USA, C5 in Germany, IRAP in Australia and MTCS Level 3 in Singapore.

Reliable security in a retail environment is crucial for us because of our many retail operations. Using AWS best security practices, we were able to eliminate many of the compliance challenges we needed to spend precious time and money on in the past.

Brian Mercer, Senior Software Architect, Delaware North

2.Scale with improved visibility and control

Data that you store in the cloud does not disappear from view. You need to know where it is and who constantly refers to it. This information should be available in near real-time, wherever you are, no matter where your data is stored in the world. Imagine the information about your infrastructure and your data in the form of a simple software call — you cannot get this view with a local data center.
Make sure you have the control you need, look for key features such as accurate identification and access control combined with activity monitoring services that detect configuration changes and security in your ecosystem.
These controls will not only allow you to reduce risk, but also be able to scale your organization more effectively. Ideally, these cloud controls and services will even integrate with your existing solutions to simplify your operations and compliance reports.

3.Protect your privacy and data

When you move your data to the cloud, you don’t give up on owning it — nor should you lose the ability to encrypt, move, and manage storage. Look for a provider who is alert to your privacy and offers tools that make it easy to encrypt your data on the go and at rest to ensure that only authorized users can access your data.
In addition, when you work with the global cloud infrastructure, you need to make sure that you can maintain full control over the regions where your data is stored.

Our data is stored in Europe, which is very important for us from a security point of view. With AWS, we have complete control over where and how data is stored, and who has access to it. This control, along with extensive encryption, means that we feel safe. We know that trust data is protected.

4.Reliable security and solution partners.

One of the biggest benefits of working with a leading cloud provider is getting access to their partners, cloud security solutions and consulting services that they offer.
There are thousands of security technologies and consulting services, but knowing which ones are appropriate for your particular situation, where to get access to them, and how to manage these actions can be difficult.
How can the right cloud security partners help?

• The right partner will have a successful experience at the stage of cloud development, which will allow you to find the right help at the right time. You can also find partners qualified in both hybrid and complex migrations.
• Use solutions that you already know and trust. Many cloud security partners offer the same tools and services that you currently use in the field, ensuring a smooth transition to the cloud for your team and your data.
• In highly regulated environments, you can find partners that meet strict security requirements and have experience creating, deploying, and managing the types of workloads that you want to migrate to the cloud.
• The right cloud computing provider will even help you ease payment problems by offering affiliate pricing and unified billing so you can manage one account for all your cloud expenses.

5.Automation to increase safety and save time

Automation is a vital component of any cloud computing security program, not only for efficiently processing large-scale checks, allowing your team to focus on more business-critical areas, but also to reduce human configuration errors.
You should also be able to automate checks of the infrastructure and security of the applications each time you deploy a new code, in order to continuously monitor security and compliance requirements, to ensure confidentiality, integrity and availability.

Thanks to AWS, IT has become more flexible than ever before and is able to keep pace with business.

6.Innovative safety features

For too long, security was perceived by some as an innovative block that slows down business. With the help of the right services and tools in the cloud, you can protect your data with greater speed and flexibility, and your security team can rightly be called an activator of innovation throughout the organization.

To achieve this kind of transformation, scale matters. An experienced cloud service provider that works with millions of customers around the world should have a team of experienced engineers who are deeply familiar with global trends, giving them a wonderful picture of emerging security issues. This knowledge, along with customer feedback, should be incorporated back into their infrastructure and services. This ongoing feedback and enhancements should improve basic security services such as robust identity and access management, logging and monitoring, encryption and key management, network segmentation, and DDoS protection.