Many organisations realise the benefits that lie within the data they collect daily. This modern approach to data empowers businesses. It leverages data for innovation and monetisation while at the same time enhancing security and privacy. While this may seem like a conundrum as companies have traditionally buried their data deep into IT architecture to prevent it from being accessible, even by the employees, today, it is possible to have the best of both. This process starts with the cloud.
The Wave of Cloud Migration Across Different Sectors
The healthcare sector is witnessing a swift surge in cloud adoption. By 2028, the healthcare cloud computing sector is expected to grow at a Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) of 18.74% (Source Vantage Market Research). This trend of rapid adoption can be seen in the financial services sector too, where organisations are moving to the cloud at an accelerated pace.
A study by Cloud Security Alliance revealed that 91% of organisations within the financial sector are either currently using cloud technology or planning to engage with it. That marks a significant increase from the figures reported four years earlier.
Despite the escalating adoption of public cloud platforms, many organisations still express their concerns about the security and confidentiality of their data in the cloud environment. Uncertainty often arises about several areas:
- the extent of a cloud provider’s duty in safeguarding customer data
- the destination of the data once migrated into the cloud
- and additional data security strategies beyond the public cloud vendors’ offerings
To overcome these concerns, there are four essential steps to consider when assessing the security of data in the cloud.
The Advanced Security Measures of Cloud Providers
Public cloud providers play a pivotal role in maintaining a secure and resilient infrastructure. This encompasses maintaining secure data centres and ensuring their cloud services’ reliability and high availability. However, the role of these providers doesn’t stop at infrastructure security. Though it falls upon customers to secure the data they transfer to the cloud, the cloud providers should step up to offer a suite of optional security services. For example, enhanced data protection and access management control would be hugely beneficial for businesses and would empower organisations to adhere to regulations and compliance requirements while allowing companies to easily access and use the data for business decision-making.
Adhering to Data Sovereignty in the Cloud
In sectors where regulation is stringent or in jurisdictions with tight controls on data privacy, maintaining compliance is vital. For businesses obligated to comply with the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) or California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) this is important. They must navigate stringent rules about the storage and transfer of customer information across borders, and non-compliance can be costly, as demonstrated by companies such as Meta and Amazon being fined millions of pounds for non-compliance to GDPR regulations.
As such, organisations must ensure that any Personally Identifiable Information (PII) transferred to the cloud is handled in a manner that meets data sovereignty requirements. This includes limiting the ability to view sovereign data outside of the region.
For many organisations, their cloud provider must adhere to specific security best practices. Their content security policy (CSP) must demonstrate compliance with security certifications relevant to their industry.
Mastering Compliance and Security of Data
Some cloud vendors offer robust security capabilities. For enterprises, these offerings are enough to satisfy their data security requirements. However, businesses that need superior data security may find it beneficial to collaborate with data protection vendors.
Such partnerships can significantly improve data integrity and offer more robust defence mechanisms against cyber threats. These will allow the safe handling of sensitive data. It is especially important for organisations in highly regulated industries such as financial services, insurance, healthcare, and retail.
Organisations in these fields often mandate complete data encryption before data migrates to the cloud. Therefore, once data is hosted in the cloud, these businesses need to implement the highest possible data protection standards to safeguard sensitive information, minimise breach risks and comply with industry regulations.
Navigating the Cloud: A Secure Data Utilisation
Organisations within different sectors can leverage cloud migration to significantly enhance operational efficiency. The transition of sensitive data to the cloud not only boosts data accessibility for businesses globally. It also ensures the system’s ability to handle growing transaction volumes without compromising performance.
Therefore, they can migrate to the cloud securely to reap the benefits of a data-driven business that accelerates innovation, AI initiatives, and business intelligence. This modern approach to data not only empowers organisations to leverage data for innovation and monetisation. It also helps to keep it secure from possible threats.
For organisations that want to ensure their data is protected and that the right users have the write access in their cloud environments, the Protegrity solution could be the answer. Protegrity partners with CSPs such as AWS, GCP and Azure.
Protegrity is the global leader in data-centric security and privacy. With Protegrity’s Secure Data Service, organisations can secure their sensitive data wherever it is, control how it is protected, and have confidence that it is safe, even if a breach occurs. Whether encrypting, tokenising, or applying privacy models, Protegrity delivers a first of its kind cross-border data protection service that offers all the tools necessary to reinstate business-critical cross-border data flows. Protegrity’s technology is cloud-agnostic, AI and machine learning-friendly and quantum-resistant. Today, Protegrity protects the data of Fortune 1000 companies, including the top banks and health insurance providers, and the world’s leading multinational companies.
