The Doppler Quarterly Fall 2017 | Page 63

Go Big on Security: 5 Steps to Overcome Security Concerns in the Cloud David Linthicum With a bit of understanding and planning, there’s no reason your data won’t be as secure in the public cloud as it is in most on-premise sys- tems. Actually, your public cloud security can surpass your on-prem- ise security. Here’s the reality: Public cloud providers have better security mechanisms in place and are more paranoid — and attentive — to security risks throughout their entire stack. Considering the paranoia around cloud computing and security, most public cloud-based sys- tems have better thought-out security mechanisms than those in traditional data centers. Why Do Many Enterprises Still Dis- trust the Cloud? What public clouds bring to the table are better secu- rity mechanisms and paranoia as a default, given how juicy they are as targets. The cloud providers are much better at systemic security services, such as looking out for attacks using pattern matching technology and even AI systems. This combination means they have very secure systems. It should be no surprise that the hackers move on to easier pickings: Enterprise data centers. The on-premise systems that IT manages are typically a mix of technologies from different eras. The aging infrastructure is often less secure – and less securable – than the modern technology used by cloud provid- ers. This is simply because the old, on-premise tech- nology was designed for an earlier era of less-sophisti- cated threats. The mixture of different technologies in the typical on-premise data center also opens up more gaps for hackers to exploit. Because on-premise systems continue to age, their intrinsic security can be easily defeated by hackers. Moreover, the number of attacks increase weekly, and defenses need to be proactive – more proactive than most enterprise IT organizations are, and likely more proactive than they can each afford to be. So why have you not gone big with cloud security? Per- haps it’s just a lack of knowledge about the process to secure your public cloud-based data store or application. Here are 5 easy steps to cloud computing security. Step 1: Understand your True Requirements. As we implement cloud-based systems and wrap them with the right security approaches and technology, FALL 2017 | THE DOPPLER | 61