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As digitization is gaining more prominence and relevance across the globe, the use of cloud-based platforms and services has increased significantly. Gone are the days when organizations were willing to spend a fortune on installing on-premise software platforms for carrying out their business processes.
However, the advent of cloud-based platforms has also resulted in increased insecurity about data security. As these solutions make business processes impersonal and data management completely virtual, organizations are always at risk of threats such as data leak, unauthorized access, cyber fraud, etc.
This makes it important for organizations to resort to cloud security monitoring options like Cloudlytics to ensure data security and seamless functioning of the IT infrastructure of the company.
Before getting into the key benefits of cloud security monitoring, let us briefly understand what the process is all about.
What Is Cloud Security Monitoring?
Cloud security monitoring is a set of processes that involve reviewing, managing, and observing the operational workflow in cloud-based security infrastructure. It revolves around the experts assessing the security module and tools implemented by an organization, helping the company enhance the strength of their IT infrastructure.
This is essentially a combination of manual and automated assessment that involves monitoring the security of software platforms, web and mobile apps, websites, and servers (virtual and physical). Through cloud security monitoring, organizations can get their security systems thoroughly analyzed, reducing the threats looming on their valuable database.
Cloud security monitoring experts continuously assess the data stored within cloud-based platforms, make sense of their behaviour, and provide remedies to deal with potential security threats. In case loopholes or existing threats are detected, immediate reforms are suggested to deal with the same before things get worse.
How Does Cloud Security Monitoring Work?
IT professionals follow a range of approaches to provide cloud security monitoring services. The majority of these services are provided within the concerned cloud platform itself. The professionals can obtain relevant permissions and have a look within the system to monitor its security.
Another approach to providing cloud monitoring services is by working with on-premise infrastructure using the existing security tools possessed by the organization. These services can also be provided via third-party service providers.
The Benefits of Cloud Security Management Services
Here are some of the major benefits of availing yourself of extensive cloud security services:
1. Keeping Sensitive Data Safe
Organizations often gather and work on data that is sensitive in nature. This data includes contact details of customers, bank account details of clients, credit/debit card details, details of their likes and preferences, and much more. The database also contains valuable information about the company itself, its shareholders, suppliers, partners, and everyone directly or indirectly associated with the organization.
An organization can, under no circumstance, afford to lose this data or letting it slip into the hands of someone who is unauthorized to access the same. Cloud security monitoring allows organizations to keep their valuable data secure through regular assessment and audits. It provides you with the status of your security system’s health and suggests means to improve your security measures.
2. Adhering To Data Compliance Regulations
Especially in the finance and healthcare industry, institutions need to adhere to specific data compliance regulations while handling records and information collected from clients/patients/donors. In such cases, it is important for all digital platforms to be equipped with security measures to help the teams to obey the set regulations.
Cloud security monitoring ensures that your system adheres to all such data compliance regulations laid out by your organization in specific or the industry in general. Also, many service providers make sure that your systems are compliant with global data compliance regulations such as GDPR and CCPA.
This helps you instil a sense of trust within your customers/clients and provide them with complete transparency on how and where their data will be used.
3. Getting Rid Of DDoS Attacks
Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks are the attacks directed towards failing or crashing the server of a website by purposefully flooding it with unwanted traffic. These attacks often end up affecting the infrastructure of a website, leading to loss of data, incomplete transactions, and time-consuming reparations.
With the help of cloud security management, you can restrict the amount of traffic hitting your website at any point in time. This would help you keep malicious DDoS attacks in check as your server would not allow traffic beyond a limit to hit your website. Also, the security checks would help you detect attempts to jeopardise your website, allowing you to take quick preventive measures.
4. Increased Flexibility
Unlike on-premise security solutions, cloud security management provides you with a good amount of flexibility in making relevant changes to your IT infrastructure for improved security. As the security measures are not too rigid, you can ramp them up or down according to your requirements.
Taking the example of DDoS attacks, while you can restrict the amount of traffic directed towards your website, you can increase this capacity if you are generating more leads from your visitors. This makes managing security processes much easier and faster to get the desired results.
5. Continuous Monitoring And Support
Cloud security management services involve monitoring your system round the clock. You can rest assured that your apps, websites, and servers will be under a scanner 24/7 to ensure the utmost safety of your infrastructure. This is contrary to on-premise security measures that require you to physically monitor your system at regular intervals. With continuous monitoring, the chances of your system falling prey to dire threats reduce significantly.
Moreover, many service providers offer continuous support to the organizations for getting their issues resolved. With cloud-based security, users can reach out to the service providers at any time and obtain personalized solutions to their problems.
6. Fit For All Sizes
Another major advantage of cloud security monitoring is the fact that the services are suitable for organizations belonging to all scales. Whether you run a small-scale startup or a giant conglomerate, you can avail of the same security services for your systems. Although the customizations of the tools will vary, the security solutions can be easily scaled according to the size of an organization.
7. Compatible For All Devices
Unlike on-premise security management which is specific to the device in question, cloud security management allows you to monitor your system from anywhere and on any device, whether you use a laptop, desktop, mobile phone, or tablet.
This makes it possible for your team members to keep a check on the IT infrastructure on the go and allow employees without laptops/desktops to be on the same page as their peers.
8. Quick And Simple Implementation
All cloud-based solutions are simple and quick to implement as the configurations and core infrastructure are already in place. All you need to do is customize the service according to the needs of your organization, install the necessary tools, and register on the required platform(s) to get started. Instead of spending days waiting for your security solutions to be set up, cloud monitoring allows you to get your system up and running in a few minutes.
9. Cost-effective Solutions
In the case of on-premise security management, organizations tend to spend a fortune in hiring developers and security experts to visit their offices and physically work on the devices to implement security solutions. Cloud security management eliminates all these hassles and gives more power to the hands of the organization.
As these services are simpler and more impersonal in nature, the implementation would cost way less as compared to its on-premise counterparts. Moreover, subscription-based models allow you to pay as you use specific tools, further helping you cut down your costs.
10. Independence From Local Issues
Finally, it is important to note that your cloud-based security solutions will not suffer due to local (on-premise) issues faced by your organization. As the cloud servers are independent of your local infrastructure, these issues will render your system harmless.
The Final Word
Cloud-based security solutions are the need of the hour and are here to stay. The increasing prominence of virtual workspaces and digitization of almost every business process proves that cloud-based platforms are going to find even more adoption in the days to come. It is, therefore, advisable for organizations operating at all scales and in all industries to make the switch to more automated solutions for economic and effective management of their security measures.
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