Last month there was a national scandal in which a hacker stole some “inappropriate selfies” (photos) of several Hollywood celebrities by accessing their smartphones through the cloud. The month before last there was a funny movie showing in theaters about a married couple that was trying to spice up their relationship by making a “private” videotape of themselves doing “private” things in their home. Through an accidental syncing episode the video is released out into the cloud. The wife asks the husband how to get the video off of the cloud, to which the husband exclaims in desperation, “Nobody understands the cloud!”  

Whether through pop culture, or as a result of actual experiences, there is a relatively prevalent public belief that the cloud is not a secure environment for data. This may be somewhat true for the average individual sharing photos and messages over social media platforms with no understanding of security and nothing between their data and a hacker other than a poorly chosen password. Many people don’t realize that security attacks are constantly going on and if proper security measures aren’t in place, breeches are not uncommon.

However, it is an absolute misconception that the cloud can’t be safe and secure. On the contrary, with a little expertise, and the right security layers in place, data can actually be far more secure in the cloud environment than in many traditional IT systems. While I find the confusion about cloud security kind of humorous, it’s actually a real shame that some businesses are missing out on the many advantages the cloud has to offer, simply out of fear caused by ignorance.

For a quality IT provider, ensuring the security and reliability of their clients’ data and entire IT system is an absolute top priority and a core business objective. For example, the security system we use at the CloudWyze data center leverages layers of encryption and multiple gateways to provide extremely high levels of protection. We also use monitoring servers that are designed for the single purpose of monitoring server health and detecting potential outsider attacks.

People frequently think of the cloud as a mysterious, intangible entity that’s out there somewhere and can’t be seen or touched. Again, there may be some truth to that idea in the broad consumer environment, but a reliable provider will likely own and manage its own cloud infrastructure in a data center. We often take our customers to our data center and show them that the cloud that their system will be using is generated by real tangible machines that can be seen and touched. We also show them how secure the actual data center facility is. Consider this … in a traditional environment in which physical servers are housed on-site, one disgruntled worker can be a major security liability. He or she could easily damage or even steal a server. But if your IT is managed offsite by a neutral party, it will be much safer, especially if the facility is as secure at it should be. The CloudWyze data center has five levels of security and the network infrastructure contains layers of backend security provisions. In other words, with the proper measures in place, the cloud is not just secure, it’s super-secure!

An IT provider that offers superior security also will help your organization set and monitor security policies. Employee user names and passwords should be more confidential than their salaries and should never be shared with anyone, internally or externally. Login data should be monitored to ensure that everyone has a unique and secure user name and password.

The next time you’re questioning the security of the cloud, ask yourself a couple of questions …

Who’s managing and monitoring security and access policies for your IT system? Is it just an IT guy? What happens if he quits or you fire him?

If security concerns have ever been a reason for you to avoid migration to the cloud, you’ve got it all backwards. Allowing IT experts with neutral opinions about your company to manage your super-secure and always completely backed-up IT system from a super secure off-site data center is about as secure as it gets.

If you want to take advantage of a level of security that can only be found in a cloud environment, give us a call at CloudWyze.

Shaun Olsen is the CEO and President of CloudWyze. CloudWyze was created to help businesses focus and perform at their optimal level by crafting and executing custom technology plans for businesses of every type and size. To learn more about CloudWyze, visit www.CloudWyze.com. Shaun can be reached at [email protected] or 910-795-1000.