Cloud Data Protection Importance, Benefits and Solutions

Data is the lifeblood of businesses, fuelling innovation and decision-making. But as data moves to the cloud, it faces new threats.

Cybercriminals are always ready to exploit any vulnerability, and insider threats are as prominent as ever. Above all else, mistakes happen – and our work-from-anywhere world amplifies the impact of them.

This raises a critical question: How can you protect your data in the cloud?

Enter cloud data protection. Where the cloud has surpassed expectations in terms of usage, protecting data within it is still a scattered exercise.

Solidifying a framework, set of technologies and healthy best practices is key for organizations to protect data in the cloud. Here’s how you can get started.

Cloud data protection refers to the strategies and technologies used to safeguard data stored in the cloud. The focus is centered on ensuring the confidentiality, integrity and availability of your data.

It’s a well understood concept now that in the cloud, your data is not just on your servers. It's on someone else's infrastructure, potentially in a different country. This is also known as the Shared Responsibility Model, and it presents unique security challenges.

Traditional data protection focuses on securing your on-premises infrastructure. You control the physical and network security. You manage the data access and encryption.

But in the cloud, you share these responsibilities with your cloud service provider. You need to understand what they protect and what you must protect.

A large part of this is ensuring that only trusted users with the right level of permissions can access your cloud applications and the data within them. It’s a practice that’s often easier said than done, with visibility being tough to come by without a tool like a Cloud Access Security Broker (CASB), Data Loss Prevention (DLP) or a framework like Zero Trust.

Regulatory compliance adds another layer of complexity. Different countries have different data protection laws. These laws dictate how you should protect personal data, and they apply to data in the cloud.

Here are some key regulations affecting cloud data protection:

• General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR): This European Union regulation imposes strict rules on data protection and privacy. It applies to all companies processing the personal data of people in the EU, regardless of the company's location.
• Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA): This U.S. law requires healthcare providers to protect patient data. If you're a healthcare provider using the cloud, you must ensure your cloud service provider is HIPAA-compliant.
• California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA): This California law gives consumers more control over their personal data. It applies to businesses that collect the personal data of California residents.
• Personal Data Protection Act (PDPA): This Singapore law requires organizations to protect the personal data of individuals. It applies to all organizations collecting, using or disclosing personal data in Singapore.

Every enterprise should begin its cloud data protection transformation by asking themselves a few important questions:

• Where is your data being stored and accessed?
• Who has access to your data in the cloud?
• Why do those users have access?
• What are users doing with your data?
• How are you protecting your data in the cloud?

Once you have these answers, you’ll have a better idea of where to focus your time, energy and resources.

When it comes to data protection in the cloud, organizations can mistakenly assume that the burden of safeguarding information falls on the vendor. But there are more cases than not where enterprises themselves are chiefly responsible for the integrity of their cloud infrastructure and anything stored inside it.

For this reason, you’ll hear a lot about the Shared Responsibility Model. It’s a fundamental concept in cloud security and it defines who is responsible for what in the cloud.

Cloud service providers, like Amazon Web Services (AWS) or Microsoft Azure, are responsible for the security "of" the cloud. They protect the infrastructure that runs all the services offered in the cloud. This includes hardware, software, networking and facilities.

On the other hand, customers are responsible for security "in" the cloud. They manage and control their data, including how it's classified and encrypted. They also control who has access to their data and how access is managed. Understanding this model is crucial for effective cloud data protection.

This is why access control is such a critical component of cloud data protection. If an account is compromised or if data is wrongly classified, then that opens the business up to newfound risk.

Many companies turn to technologies like CASB or DLP to deliver access to cloud applications as along with continuous control over the data inside of them. They are critical tools in covering your part of the Shared Responsibility Model.

When it comes to cloud data protection, there are several best practices that organizations should follow. One of the most important is encryption.

Encryption is the process of converting data into an indecipherable code to prevent unauthorized access. It's a critical component of cloud data protection. All data, both at rest and in transit, should be encrypted.

Key management is also crucial. Encryption keys should be securely stored and regularly rotated. Some organizations choose to manage their own keys, while others rely on their cloud service provider.

Another important practice is implementing strong access controls and identity management. This involves ensuring that only authorized individuals have access to sensitive data.

Identity management systems can help manage user identities and control access to resources. They can also provide multi-factor authentication, single sign-on and other security features.

With remote work more popular, applying data protection policies to both managed and unmanaged devices is important. Unifying cloud, endpoint and BYOD policies can make it easier to manage them and will consolidate reporting.

Similarly, maintain strong data controls for public cloud and private web apps. A CASB can help with the former, and Zero Trust Network Access (ZTNA) can help with the latter. Both monitor and control data within business-critical applications.

Data backup and recovery are a well-known best practice with multiple facets. These include:

• Regularly back up data: This ensures that you can recover your data if it's lost or compromised.
• Use multiple backup methods: Don't rely on a single backup method. Use a combination of methods for maximum protection.
• Test your backups: Regularly test your backups to ensure they're working properly.
• Have a recovery plan: Know how you'll recover your data in the event of a loss.

Outside of technologies, businesses should regularly conduct security audits and data risk assessments. Activities include:

• Conduct regular security audits: This helps identify vulnerabilities and areas for improvement.
• Perform data risk assessments: Understand the risks associated with your data and how to mitigate them.
• Use automated tools: Use tools that can automatically detect vulnerabilities or risks to data, alert you to them or resolve them in real time.
• Stay updated: Keep up with the latest security trends and threats to ensure your data protection strategies are effective.

Being able to get instant alerts and resolve incidents in real time is a foundational aspect of strong cloud data protection, given the nature of the cloud. Users can access it from anywhere in near-lightning speed, so blocking exfiltration or improper access can be a difficult task without real-time responses.

Pairing a DLP with dynamic, automated policy adjustments can be valuable in this aspect. Risk-Adaptive Protection (RAP) enables organizations to adapt policies based on user behavior to prevent threats before they have a chance to strike.

There are two types of cloud data protection policies that enterprises should be aware of.

An acceptable use policy plays an important role by dictating which cloud applications are safe to use. It outlines the rules and procedures for accessing, handling and protecting data in the cloud, and helps prevent shadow IT by ensuring data isn’t stored in non-approved cloud applications.

These process-oriented policies foster a culture of security within the organization. It's not just about technology; it's also about people and processes. Ensuring people don’t use risky applications or store data where IT can’t get visibility and control over it is step No. 1 in protecting data on the cloud.

Cloud data protection policies control interactions between users and data to stop potentially nefarious acts. They are often delivered through a DLP or a CASB and help enterprises safeguard structured and unstructured data stored in the cloud.

A well-crafted policy can help prevent data breaches and ensure regulatory compliance, without impacting the productivity of employees.

Both sets of policies should include several key components. These include the scope of the policy, roles and responsibilities, data classification and handling procedures, security controls, incident response plans and training requirements.

An acceptable use policy should be developed with the below in mind:

• Identify your data: Understand what data you have, where it's stored and who has access to it.
• Define roles and responsibilities: Clearly outline who is responsible for implementing and enforcing the policy.
• Develop security controls: Identify the security controls you'll use to protect your data.
• Create an incident response plan: Know what steps to take in the event of a data breach or other security incident.
• Train your staff: Ensure that all employees understand the policy and their role in protecting data.
• Regularly review and update the policy: As your organization and technology evolve, so should your policy.

A cloud data protection policy must take into account:

• Classification and classifiers: Discover and classify data in the cloud to determine what needs protection. Ensure control over that data with a large set of classifiers that covers both structured and unstructured data.
• Industry and regional regulations: Account for compliance with pre-defined policy templates that map to the specific regulations you must adhere to.
• Policy coverage: Extend coverage to both managed and unmanaged devices to account for hybrid and remote work.
• Enforcement actions: Deploy a mix of premeditated and real-time enforcement to empower user productivity while keeping data safe should threats emerge.

At the end of the day, robust cloud data protection relies on industry-leading security solutions to truly safeguard sensitive information.

When considering different vendors, the data security lifecycle can be a guide as to which technologies make the most sense to add.

• Discover data across public and private cloud storage applications and infrastructure.
• Classify unstructured and structured data continuously and with high-level precision.
• Prioritize coverage and enforcement where the enterprise is most vulnerable.
• Protect data with strong security controls that apply to any application and device.
• Monitor alerts and remediate incidents in real time.

Forcepoint Data Security Posture Management (DSPM) helps enterprises cover the discover, classify and prioritize aspects of their data security lifecycle. DSPM provides complete visibility into data wherever it’s stored, classifies that data based on criticality and uses artificial intelligence to improve its classification accuracy over time. DSPM solutions form the foundation of mature data security strategies.

Forcepoint ONE Data Security enables organizations to protect their data. The cloud-native DLP Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) unifies policy configuration, coverage and enforcement across the cloud but also web, email and endpoint to ensure consistent protection. It delivers granular device control over managed and unmanaged devices, even when the device is offline. Forcepoint ONE Data Security integrates with Forcepoint CASB to offer data protection for over 800,000 cloud applications.

Forcepoint Risk-Adaptive Protection rounds out the data security lifecycle with continuous monitoring of user activity. RAP can adjust cloud data protection policies based on user behavior in real time, ensuring that employees are able to access data without impediment but maintaining tight control over that data to prevent exfiltration.

Securing data in multi-cloud and hybrid environments presents unique challenges. These include managing multiple security policies, dealing with different cloud architectures and ensuring consistent protection across all environments.

Despite these challenges, there are strategies that can help. These include using a centralized security management platform, implementing consistent security policies across all environments and using encryption for data in transit and at rest.

Data Security Everywhere is a great example of this in action. By using a central DLP platform such as Forcepoint ONE Data Security, organizations can unify coverage across multiple channels to ensure consistent enforcement and control over data.

Dependable security across environments such as cloud, web, email and endpoint is crucial. This involves not only implementing the same security measures across these environments but also continuously monitoring and auditing your security posture. Regular security assessments can help identify any gaps or vulnerabilities, allowing you to address them promptly.

Lastly, ensure that you have visibility of data across all these environments. Forcepoint DSPM, for example, can discover and classify data at 300 files per second across Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS), on-premises storage, Identity and Access Management (IAM) solutions and SaaS to deliver a comprehensive view of your data.