Technology adoption in the modern world can be a daunting process – especially for smaller sized businesses. There is a myriad of options available and this, coupled with technical jargon can make things feel a little complex, inflexible and all too often tied to, and limited by, current infrastructure.
The advancement towards digital
transformation however remains a top priority, where the use of cloud-based
services and applications is changing this perceived challenge and is simply making
perfect sense. In fact, small and medium sized businesses (SMBs) are turning to
the cloud as a means to capitalise on digital, without the hefty capital
expenditure and maintenance costs associated with IT infrastructure.
Research¹ shows that 78% of businesses
across SMB and enterprise segments globally already use one form of cloud
service, with 75% planning to move more applications to the cloud in the future.
While certainly a solid strategy - utilising cloud services, be it public,
private or hybrid, doesn’t come without risks – particularly to data.
While there is large interest and planning to invest
further in the cloud, the same research also indicates that 59% of both SMB and
enterprise businesses feel that cloud hosted services (along with outsourcing)
have the potential to introduce new risks to the IT security of their business.
Despite these reservations many are still not taking cloud security seriously or
putting the right procedures in place to secure their cloud environments for
the purpose of ensuring data is protected. This can leave many businesses
caught up in an untamed cloud data jungle – one they have limited control and
visibility of, leaving them wide open and vulnerable to possible cyberattacks.
In fact, data protection is one of the biggest
concerns for cloud-adopters, with complex threats, opportunist ransomware, data
theft, financial fraud and random human error among the ever-growing list. And, while cloud providers are working hard to
improve the security and reliability of their cloud platforms, cloud-native
security capabilities don’t always suit the demands of corporate systems.
Banning or restricting certain applications, monitoring the ongoing behaviour
of every application at work, and shielding systems from vulnerability
exploitation are all crucial tasks that still remain the customer’s
responsibility.
To circumvent this and minimise a situation that can
leave a business unsecure, unprepared and potentially falling victim to
cyberattacks, businesses must look to equip themselves with a security offering
specifically designed for effective cloud protection.
Kaspersky
Hybrid Cloud Security is such a solution. It protects
applications and data in physical, virtual and cloud workloads by building on
Kaspersky Lab’s extensive experience in security for software-defined data
centers. The solution provides multi-layered protection to multi-cloud
environments. This means that wherever a business may process and store
critical business data – be it a private or public cloud, or both - a perfectly balanced combination of agile,
continuous security and superior efficiency are offered through this solution, resulting
in the protection of data against the most advanced current and future threats,
all without compromising on systems performance.
The solution also provides API-based integration
with Amazon Web Services (AWS) and supports the Microsoft Azure cloud platform,
allowing users to extend security to every asset they put in the public cloud. A
well-balanced blend of best-of-breed protection, resource efficiency, and
enterprise-level orchestration capabilities for public and private cloud
environments is what this solution offers.
Having the appropriate cloud security solution in
place, that can scan for and path known vulnerabilities, can make a massive
difference to whether malware or a threat causes massive disruption or damage,
or if it is caught in time and before possible disaster strikes. Not focusing
on, or, getting cloud security wrong can stop critical business functions and
bring it to a standstill or could cause very real harm. All cloud environments
need to be secure – and with the solutions available to support this, cloud security
shouldn’t be keeping business decision makers up at night.
¹ According to ‘Cloud Zoo: Don’t Let Your Business Data Roam Free’ report https://www.kaspersky.com/blog/cloud-zoo/