Cloud applications and architecture have both costs and benefits to information security. On the one hand, moving to cloud hosting or cloud security solutions allows your company and developers to focus on developing essential applications. Also, many cloud service providers offer DDoS protection to make sure your applications remain operational without incurring the cost of creating a secure network architecture.

On the other hand, moving to a cloud provider will not instantly remedy all the security risks your business may face. Whenever you share data with another company, you also accept the risk that if an attacker compromises their services, your data will likely be a casualty. Based on this idea, backups are a necessity made exactly for this contingency. Security in this space relies on proper configuration, but ultimately it’s in the hands of the provider your business chooses.

The threat of a data breach is a top security risk whenever considering moving your companies data. While data breaches have been a constant risk, the introduction of cloud services opens up several new attack vectors. In a multi-resident cloud database, a simple misconfiguration could lead to a breach of not just one client’s data but all neighboring data as well. Though this commonly happens in smaller VPS environments, this can occur in larger more sophisticated environments as well.

The threat to cloud services grows larger when we consider social engineering attempts. Phishing and browser exploitation is nothing new, but with the option of cloud services, a new threat emerges. An attacker that targets a cloud administrator and can obtain a valid administrator session or credentials can also access sensitive areas of the cloud. With full permissions, the attacker can erode confidentiality, control the availability of the service and much more. The public nature of cloud access means both legitimate users and attacks can obtain access from anywhere.

Luckily, many cloud service providers are taking great lengths to ensure the safety of your services. For example, AWS has extensive whitelisting and access control capabilities. Also providers Microsoft’s Azure, Verizon’s Cloud and IBM’s SoftLayer support two-factor authentication (2FA) to mitigate the impact of compromised credentials. Most providers even enable login notifications for users to be more aware of how their usernames and passwords are submitted. Multi-tenant cloud providers are also supplying stronger encryption of client databases at rest and access controls for specific tables and rows in given a database.

However, not all cloud service providers are created equal. Ultimately, the security of your data and business are in the hands of the supplier you choose. Researching a provider’s detection and response capabilities is a must when deciding which provider would work best for your business. You may find that their response model doesn’t account for scenarios that you have identified as important. A thorough evaluation of your cloud provider can help mitigate the risk you will eventually take on. Choosing the right cloud service for your business may be difficult, but there are lengths you can take to ensure your overall protection.

While cloud services can bring value added to your business, the risk of choosing the wrong provider is daunting. Ultimately the largest risk has to do with outsourcing the responsibility to protect your data to another party. Some cloud providers take this burden seriously, providing the tools you need to create strong security policies with some of the most advanced authentication and authorization methods that exist in the industry. The risk of consolidating infrastructure and security to a third party can pose many risks, but when researched and implemented correctly cloud security can provide the same peace of mind as more traditional solutions.