Small businesses have become complicated, developing the bulk of data annually, looking for flexible solutions and ease of access.

Transferring that data to the cloud brings many advantages, generating a highly productive work environment, helping enterprises to cater consumers needs with speed and agility, cutting upfront costs and securing businesses in the event of the disaster or any other disruption.

But there is also another face when it comes to data security.

Company’s data and property are not securely tucked away in the office, but floating seamlessly among employees, computers, tablets, and other smart devices, instantly accessible to customers, or to anyone who has hands on your data.

In fact, your confidential company data is not in your control at all, it’s in the knowledge of many people all at once, and if they are not savvy about cyber threats, this will deliver your data in the hands of the wrong people.

As small businesses are likely to have fewer resources to devote to cybersecurity and less expertise to monitor threats to IT systems, they are more prone to attacks, according to experts.

The reasons why small businesses are vulnerable to data breaches:

• Lack of legal expertise and specialist security
• Fewer processes and controls
• Remote work processes with insecure Wi-Fi
• Small businesses provide a ‘back door’ to global clients
• Security questioned websites, emails, and payment processes
• Loopholes that lead to loss of data

As the cloud is the latest technology to secure data from malicious attacks, SMB’s need to care about cloud security due to following reasons:

Exploiting errors

Whether malicious or not, human error is one of the common grounds of data breaches and cyber-attacks, with stats declaring it responsible for as many as 95 percent of cyber blunders. The data breach can occur due to many reasons for instance employees unintentionally sending confidential information to the wrong email, loss of company’s smartphone, using default passwords or with criminal intent. With so many risks looming around, many small businesses don’t have control checks, training and communication to deal with breaches of this kind.

Data Integration

When it comes to data integrity, no business can compromise on it. Data integrity means protecting data from unauthorized deletion, remodeling, or fabrication.

Managing entity’s admittance and rights to particular business resources ensure that confidential data and services are not misappropriated, abused, and stolen.

Data integrity is achievable with a standalone system with the unique database. The maintenance of data integrity in the standalone system takes place by database constraints and transactions while database management system (DBMS) finishes it. The rule of transactions that companies should follow to ensure integrity is ACID (atomicity, consistency, isolation, and durability).

Authorization is a way to control the access of data. It is a technique by which the cloud determines the extent of access a particular authenticated user has to get the data.

Phishing attacks

Phishing is a critical cyber-attack when an attacker sends emails to multiple recipients, showcasing the reputable status of a company. The email will contain appealing information with hidden malware link or attachment that prompts to enter sensitive account and password details. Spear-phishing is a targeted attack on a particular company or individual.

Despite so much awareness about constant attacks via email links, many phishing emails are still able to trick and convince about their reliability. As hackers get a secure gateway, they get more confident to break more tightened security networks.

Susceptible to these attacks, small businesses look forward to cloud computing to get the comprehensive data backups solution within real time. No doubt, cloud shields data but the tag of security issues is still there because of potential attacks like Ransomware.

Threat oriented security frameworks

Many SMB’s don’t have enough resources to deploy robust firewalls and advanced security patches, resulting in information loss in case get attacked. Cybersecurity is a serious and multifaceted problem that requires the updated technology and the right planning and processes in place.

As small businesses are unlikely to have technical personnel internally, the only solution is to rely on the third-party to deploy strong firewalls along with an updated security patches. But even that’s not enough on its own, as the employee elements also need to consider, with complete risk assessments, the security policies and access controls.

Wrapping up:

It’s easy to excuse the fact that data accompanies your employees on-site and off-site the office premises, and that it needs to be protected at all times.

“Small businesses don’t have big budgets to splurge on protecting their online systems. However, there are small, smart and secure steps they can take to beef up their online security including using the cloud vendors that adhere to advanced security protocols.”

If your business is in the infant stage, you can even take help from agencies which hold expertise and provide training to guide you the best of the cloud. AWS Technical Essential Training is designed to help IT leaders and others for the better understanding of the AWS cloud so that you are better equipped to craft a cloud adoption strategy that works for your business.

Author bio

This article is written by Danish Wadhwa of Simplilearn.  It is one of the leading certification training providers. “Danish Wadhwa is a strategic thinker and an IT Pro. With more than six years of expertise in the digital marketing industry, he is more than a results-driven individual. He is well-versed in providing high-end technical support, optimizing sales and automating tools to stimulate productivity for businesses.”