Cloud Storage: Is It Safe Enough For Your Business?

Businesses throughout the centuries have been extremely protective with their ideas and documents, and for good reason. While mutually-beneficial arrangements for storing goods are relatively low-risk (loss or abuse of goods can be addressed through legal action), the notion of allowing sensitive data to be held off-site by a third-party entity has always been worrisome.

Think about how significant a role intellectual property plays in the valuing and development of companies. How many huge brands would never have made it through the startup phase without the zealous protection of their product concepts? Sure, you can open up a lawsuit if someone tasked with guarding your data allows it to be leaked (or leaks it themselves), but if the data is out there then there’s no putting that genie back in the bottle.

Because of this, and a general skepticism about the online world that lingers in certain types of large company, there are still many businesses that don’t use cloud storage. If yours is one of them but you’re thinking about changing that, you might want some clarity about how safe cloud storage really is — so that’s what we’re going to provide here. Let’s get to it:

You can get it bundled with high-level security

Basic cloud storage for personal use doesn’t make significant guarantees about security because it doesn’t need to. You get what you pay for, and you don’t pay anything to use Google Drive or Dropbox to store the occasional photo. But business-level cloud storage doesn’t just offer solid security innately: it also combines neatly with security services.

This is particularly easy to arrange when you get your cloud storage through an IT reseller with a strong understanding which services work together well (resellers can secure excellent rates through working with cloud solution distributors: I suggest checking out a site like www.inty.com if you want to know more about how this works). Cloud storage bundled with high-level encryption can ensure that your files remain exceptionally secure.

Most hacks stem from social engineering or guesswork

We’ve all heard about high-profile data leaks from some huge companies, and it’s enough to make us concerned about our own data, but here’s the issue with most of those ostensible hacks: they didn’t result from weak server security. The servers did what they were supposed to do. No, the systems were compromised through social engineering or guesswork.

Social engineering is about manipulating and using the people with access to a system to eventually gain unauthorized access. For example, you could contact an admin and pose as one of their colleagues (someone warranted in asking for login details) — if you succeeded, you’d have access without needing to hack anything.

Guesswork, on the other hand, is about relying on weak password standards to brute-force entry into a system. You can use the most secure system in the world, but if you insist on using passwords like 123456789 or having extremely obvious security questions then you’ll be rendering all of that security completely ineffective.

Local storage is even more vulnerable

Is it safe to store data locally? No, not really. If we focus on the prospect of the physical storage being compromised (which makes sense as a differentiator since both types of storage require online access these days), then this becomes abundantly clear. Which facility do you envision being harder to break into? Your run-of-the-mill office, or a custom-built data-storage facility with high-level security and 24/7 guard sweeps?

Barring the unlikely scenario in which you have the funds and inclination to invest heavily in a state-of-the-art data storage facility all to yourself, you’re never going to store data as securely as a cloud storage company can store it for you. And since just about everyone keeps data remotely these days, it really isn’t cause for concern.

If data leaked due to security issues, the storage companies would be utterly ruined, so they’re fully incentivized to ensure safety. They can also offer supreme levels of data redundancy to keep you covered even in the face of catastrophic failures or extreme weather conditions.

It can make it easier to meet data standards

Since GDPR went into effect throughout the EU (take a look at https://gdpr-info.eu/ if you’re not familiar with it), data storage and use standards have risen commensurably throughout the world. Businesses need to be very careful with how they store and process customer data, as even if they’re not being monitored by authorities, they’ll no doubt be subjected to harsh scrutiny by customers and prospective partners alike.

And though it might sound as though using cloud storage for such data would raise the level of complexity, it doesn’t need to. The key is choosing a cloud storage provider with a strong understanding of data storage concerns, because such a provider can advise you on the best way to segment and process your data (and even handle a lot of the tasks for you).

In conclusion, then, let’s return to the titular question: is cloud storage safe enough for your business? Well, provided you choose the right provider and service option, the answer is an inarguable yes. Good cloud storage is actually safer than local data storage, in addition to being cheaper, easier, more accessible, and more scalable. If you’re not currently using it, now is the time to change the way you operate.