Security in the Cloud – Smart fish swim together

For as long as the cloud has been around, there have always been doubts over its security and privacy. Cited as the two main concerns by most of the cloud’s critics, Azure has come a long way from those early days and worries. According to Microsoft’s ‘Myths about moving to the Cloud’ eBook, “Microsoft hires the best and brightest when it comes to thwarting security breaches, and we have the scale most companies can only dream about.” Worries over external ‘spies’ having access to data stored on the cloud has also proven to be unfounded, as each organisations IT team retains the data stored and are the sole owner, with the ability to restrict access.

Microsoft are investing huge amounts of money into security, ensuring that yours and everyone else’s data is secure. Sticking together with one of the biggest cloud providers, Microsoft, is like being part of a shoal of fish swimming in the ocean together. When you’re all together acting in unison, under the one cloud security roof, individuals are almost impenetrable.

Around the clock updates from Microsoft make it incredibly difficult for hackers to exploit their cloud environment and it’s even harder to go after a single company’s data. It’s much easier for a shark to come along and pick off a lone wanderer attempting to defend themselves as it doesn’t have the same protection as the big group.

The best anyone can ask for from their cloud provider, is proactive support, which Microsoft encompass by taking a constant ‘assume breach’ stance – something which we advise all customers to do. You should always assume you’re under attack. The Microsoft global incident response team are continuously working on mitigating the effects of an attack, or attempted attacks rather, against cloud services.

As we continue moving forward, there is going to be more and more cloud providers setting up shop and offering their services. This is why it’s essential for organisations to make the right choice, on both a financial and security level. With risual and Microsoft, you’re trusting companies that complies with both international and industry-specific compliance standards and participate in regular audits to verify security controls. This means anything housed within the cloud is protected by one of the most rigorous and robust systems. Providing you ‘stay in the shoal’ by sticking to the advised governance and train staff to prevent human leaks, you are much less likely to be breached than when you’re on your own.

As noted in our previous blog, ‘Learn from the mistakes of the Death Star’, you’re only as strong as the weakest link within your organisation. Therefore, it’s critical that you ensure all devices are patched and up-to-date in order to get the most out of Microsoft’s multi-million-pound security budget. At the end of the day, there is only so much a lone fish can do to avoid detection in a big ocean, which is why smart fish swim together and recognise the importance of being under the umbrella of a proactive cloud infrastructure.

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