How to choose only reputed cloud security services?

Cloud technology is considered as next-gen technology. A lot of research and development work is in progress on this one specific domain. More and more businesses are taking advantage of cloud services to manage their storage operations. But to access these functional services there have been always a huge need for professional cloud security services that ensures that every business cloud stays protected and away from access to harmful factors.

However, hiring a trustworthy security supplier for your company might be a piece of cake. There are many service providers with huge corporate brand identities, but lower class services. How not to be fooled by them? Well, here are some important factors that must be considered when choosing a cloud security service provider.

Check Reliability and Reputation

It is imperative to understand the company you are going to hire. The company’s reliability and reputation must be checked prior to hiring them. It is really important to look at the client list of your chosen security service provider and track their success rate. The best way to verify about the reputation of a company is to meet some of their clients and understand what they actually have about this one company. This is a great way to track their success rate and also it will help you in analyzing how your company can take benefit from this one specific company.

Suitability

It is really important to understand whether your company has suitability to move into cloud technology and what kind of the cloud environment can better suit your needs. To understand the suitability of different types of cloud services will help you in choosing which service provider will be sufficient for you (you can also choose those who are going to give your services on a trial basis). This way you can actually track which cloud will suit you as it will help you how a specific cloud can help you.

Support and Service Level Agreements (SLAs)

Support services and Service level agreements are vital when a cloud service is borne downtime. When looking for the services offered by your chosen cloud service provider do look into the support commitment agreement it is offering as it will help you in the future to combat with different challenges. You should look into the agreement of companies and only select those offer fast support services that have more open time as this will increase their availability. Always see their support department on your own and look at how they treat their clients as it will help you in making a wis decision.

Security of the Cloud

Security of the cloud is equally important as it is purchased cloud in reality. It is really important to understand ways how the chosen company will protect the cloud. The stored data will obviously be confidential and extremely important with a high priority need to be protected against malicious activities. That is, why do ask how your selected company will protect the most important data of your company.

Types of Cloud Computing Explained

Cloud computing services are extremely getting famous and with time most companies are realizing that it is quite different from cloud security which many companies are offering. In addition to that company who are looking for a specific cloud computing, service must understand that each company needs a different cloud computing service which can suit their small company’s IT operations.

There are different types of cloud 

1. Public
2. Private
3. Hybrid

The type of cloud security service you choose really depends on the level of security your company requires, your in-house IT expertise and the type of cloud service you are looking for.

Public cloud:

The public cloud security services are considered ideal for small businesses and companies with limited IT budgets. These clouds are available for any company that wishes to subscribe for their cloud. The public cloud security service is also affordable and flexible, and also companies to access various networks so that they can easily afford, which is not possible in other cases for a company with a limited budget.

 

Private cloud:

Private cloud services are customized for a specific company (mid-sized to large). The services of private clouds are utilized by larger companies with the budget and IT expertise to be able to run a private network. Because of the customization, private clouds are considerably expensive than public ones and will take much more time to set up and utilize. However, private cloud are considered much more secure than a public one and as they offer strong control of management and data processing.

 

Hybrid cloud:

In hybrid cloud services is a perfect combination of both private cloud and public cloud. It has a lot to offer to almost every type of company and also considered as a preferred choice for many.

 

For small companies:

For small companies, a hybrid cloud can offer easy access to resources hosted by a private cloud without paying the cost of pure private cloud. A hybrid service also offers security of a private company to a small company (which they may not receive in case of public cloud) and greater flexibility than public cloud.

 

For larger companies:

Hybrid cloud can include a private cloud with features of a public cloud service which means even large companies can enjoy the benefits of public cloud (more space and ease). For small businesses and companies looking to try a private cloud service, hybrid cloud computing companies are an ideal way to gain a feel of the network and the provided.

There are advantages to each type of cloud service as these things usually depend on your requirements. No matter what are your requirements you can get a suitable solution from any above mentioned cloud types. Ideally hybrid and public clouds are used as they offer more security, flexibility in data management and also they are less costly than private clouds.

Top 3 Threats to Cloud Security Services

Cloud computing is grabbing its vital place after RSA Conference 2013, among organizations and vendors involved in comprehensive IT solutions. These companies are offering quick controls to companies in order to avoid threats, but first it is an important way for companies to identify their cloud related threats. To avoid such threats companies need reliable cloud security services.

 

10 Best Practices for Integrating Data

Even now in corporate world data integration is often underestimated and poorly implemented. To help companies in identifying cloud computing threats by mentioning nine cloud computing threat for 2013.

The first threat is data breaches.  To point out the importance of this type of threat, CSA pointed to a research paper describing how a virtual machine can be used as side-channel timing information to extract private cryptographic keys in use by other connected virtual machines on the same server. In fact, with such strong connectivity a malicious hacker wouldn’t go to that depth in order to extract important information. In short, if a cloud computing network is not designed properly, even a single flaw in one single machine can leave the whole cloud just like a piece of cake for the hacker. Hackers can steal easily not only information from one node, but from all computers connected to that cloud.

 

Challenge:

The challenge is addressing is eradicating this threat from cloud networks in order to save people from any kind of important data loss. Encryption of data can be used to eradicate the data breach risk using certain encryption technique, but what if you lose your encryption key, you will lose your data.

However, if you are someone ready to keep backups of your data to reduce data loss, but at the same time you will expose your system for more data breaches.

Second threat in a cloud computing environment is disappearing of data to some other place without leaving a single trace.  Hacker might delete a target’s data out of spite, but still this is a situation in which you can leave your data to an unsecure cloud or a careless cloud service provider for bigger disaster such as a flood, earthquake and fire. Summarizing the challenge, encryption of your data in such a way that you can retain it in case of such incidents using your encryption key.

Data loss is not only one threat that is challenging in cloud computing, but also it is really difficult for people who want to store important data in order to get compliance with Government agencies such as HIPPA.

The third cloud computing risk could be service or account hijacking – we are almost familiar with such kind of threat, but in case of cloud computing it will be really hard.  For instance if an hacker can get access to your credentials, he or she can easily monitor, hijack or even mitigate it according to his/her needs by leaving hopeless.