Being backed up is one thing. Making sure that your data is secure while it’s nestled in the cloud is another thing entirely. There are a lot of ways data can be stolen or get corrupted while you think it’s sitting safely in cloud storage somewhere. Want to know if your data is really safe? Here are a few things to look for:
The Keys to the House
When you back up your information to the cloud, you should have a security key—something that only specific people within your organization have access to. If someone needs to get to your information, they’ll have to provide the security key. When we say that only specific people in your organization should have it, we mean it: not even the cloud backup provider should have access to your data. Otherwise, your data can be compromised. Unless you provide your security key to your cloud backup provider for disaster recovery, it’s yours to keep safe.
Keeping the Shades Drawn
Privacy is taken very seriously, but privacy in the online world is still an area where the law is trying to keep up. There are plenty of compliance regulations that your cloud backup and storage providers will need to meet, like FERPA, HIPAA, the GLB Act, Payment Card Industry standards, and many, many more. Different organizations will have different minimum privacy requirements, make sure that your backup provider meets the level compliance you need.
Scrambling the Eggs
Encryption is a no-brainer as far as computer security goes, but every cloud service provider will offer different levels of encryption. The solution we use at Echopath, for example, is FIPS 140-2 Certified, and uses AES 256 Bit Encryption. Make sure your data is being encrypted to a level that will deter even the savviest of hackers.
Along with the level of encryption, it’s important to make sure that your data is encrypted as early as possible. Ideally, it gets encrypted before it even leaves your host computers, and stays encrypted through flight and into storage. If your backup solution doesn’t offer this, it might be time to rethink how secure you really are.
Cleaning the Carpet
An audit trail is the number one way for you to know who changed what, and when they did it. If something goes missing, an audit trail can track down the last person who opened the document to edit it. The majority of cloud backup providers will keep an audit trail for you. It can make recovery easier, as well as make investigation in the case of a problem smoother as well.