Cloud-reply
This is the Should Highly Sensitive Data Be Stored in the Cloud work you have done a week
ago. Each reply must be at least 1 paragraph and 100 words in overall length. Each post must
address the original post and can either agree or disagree with the original poster's position. As
with the original post - support your arguments, but you are only required to have 1 supporting
argument and cite at least 1 external source for this reply.
Statement1:
Three policies that any organization should use to ensure data in the cloud remains private and
secure:
1. Educate employees on Cloud Security.
2. Encrypt data in transition and at rest.
3. Strengthen identify and access management (IAM)
Organizations should educate employees on cloud security to avoid loss of sensitive information
to unauthorized users due to human error. According to IBM’s Cost of a Data Breach Report,
24% of data breaches were caused by human error and seven out of ten employees are not
adequately trained in cybersecurity awareness per MediPRO (Anonymous, 2020). I believe
educating employees on how identify phishing attacks, differentiate secured from unsecured sites
and encouraging them to install security software will mitigate the risk of losing sensitive data.
The second policy that any organization should use to ensure data stored in the cloud is safe from
cyber-attacks is encrypting data. Sensitive data in transit and at rest should be encrypted at all
times (Pangam, 2017). This allows an organization to comply with privacy policies, regulatory
and contractual obligations for handling sensitive information (Pangam, 2017). I believe
encrypting data during transmission and at rest minimizes loss of sensitive data due to human
error or cyber-attacks.
The last policy that any organization should use to ensure data stored in the cloud remains
private and secure involves strengthening identity and access management (IAM). IAM helps
organization by streamlining and automating identify and access management and eliminates the
need for IT team to manually assign access controls, monitor, update privileges or deleting
accounts (Alvarenga, 2022). Additionally, organization can implement single sign-on to
authenticate user’s identity and allow access to multiple application using one set of credentials
(Alvarenga, 2022). Single sign-on would decrease the likelihood of password-related hacks and
combining it with multi-factor authentication (MFA) would add an additional layer of security to
the organization (McKeown, 2021). At my job, we use single sign-on, and MFA and I believe
this policy safeguards my company’s sensitive data.
As a citizen, we should be storing data with national security in the cloud. The world is
changing, and as such, government agencies have to adapt and keep up with technological
advances. I would suggest storing data on two servers: a private server and public server. The
private server could be used to store highly classified information and the government will have
control over this information under the control of an in-house IT team. Investing in cloud
infrastructure is expensive so public server could come in handy to store additional information.
I believe having both servers will minimize loss of sensitive data as it could be difficult for a
cyber-attack to target both servers at the same time.
Statment2:
Cloud storage for data is certainly an important topic as companies race to find ways to increase
storage capabilities while lowering costs. One of the most common hesitancies is the fact that
this leaves the organization susceptible to attacks since they are creating a single point of
vulnerability with many types of sensitive data. With that said, there are various policies that
organizations can deploy to help prevent data breaches:
#1 Review Access to Cloud Infrastructure- According to computer.org, one of the best ways to
prevent cloud computing attacks is by “monitoring, revoking, and limiting access to cloud
infrastructure” (Venugopal, 2022). This is important because an organization needs to keep tabs
on who is getting access to what and if someone is getting access that is not permitted, they can
mitigate the damages early with identifying a breach instantly.
#2 Backing Up Data- Knowing that hacks on clouds do happen and ransomware can be
deployed to hold companies’ hostage, it is important to have a backup plan. Microsoft Azure has
a great backup system where its purpose is to create a product for organizations that is cost-
effective and secure. With their back up system, companies can select what data or applications
need to get backed up and they can manage this at scale (Microsoft Azure, n.d.).
#3 Protecting Data from Source to Storage- According to apriorit.com, one of the foremost
things a company should do when using a cloud system is protecting the data at the source, in
transit, and when it is at rest. This means that encryption needs to begin even before data is input
into the cloud. This is important because account hijacking can occur and there can be “man-in-
the-middle attacks” where hackers deploy cyber-attacks on data in transit (Apriorit, 2018).
Personally, I do believe we should be using/storing data with national security implications on
the cloud, however they should have the most rigorous protocols and protection procedures. It is
awful to learn about the breaches in sensitive information (especially when self-inflicted) and it
shows how important it is for proper protection protocols. I also think on a national level there
should be measure in place for citizens that occur any loss, financial harm, or identity theft due
to any breaches/leaks. Although cloud storage is still developing and growing, I do think that it is
an inevitable technology that will only continue to get better.