What Is Cloud Data Security?

Cloud data security defined

Companies collect data from customers and clients and store that information in the cloud, making the protection of that data a top priority. And as a business’s public cloud footprint grows in size and complexity, so does the need for cloud data security.

Cloud data security refers to the technologies, services, policies, and processes that protect sensitive data and other digital assets—within, across, and outside of clouds. It helps ensure that assets remain safe from security threats, human error, and internal threats like data loss, leakage, misuse from breaches, corruption, theft, and unauthorized access. Sensitive data can include public and nonpublic information such as names, birthdates, government information, IP address, intellectual property, and biometric information.

Cloud-based technologies enable collaboration across many workspaces and geographic regions but can prove most difficult to shield from cyberattacks, ransomware, and data leaks.

People may confuse cloud data security for data security or cloud security—but cloud data security is not just about the data you have. It also encompasses data not bound by the constraints of your hardware. This includes:

Data in use: Securing data used within an application.
Data in motion: Transmitting data safely as it moves within a network through encryption or additional security measures.
Data at rest: Protecting data stored in any network location.

Importance of cloud data security

As many organizations move from local to cloud storage, chief information officers (CIOs) and security teams must reevaluate how they ensure their sensitive data remains safe.

When an organization’s data can be accessed from many different systems—and is stored across multiple cloud environments—managing it and protecting it from unwanted users becomes harder. Having strong cloud data security helps stop malicious users from accessing your network, ensures business continuity, adds a stricter level of governance, and keeps your business compliant.

Companies continue to gather, access, and store large amounts of data from clients and customers. The constant exposure of sensitive and confidential data and greater multicloud adoption and cloud-native application development could lead to more opportunities for data breaches or cyberattacks. A traditional on-premises data center can no longer be the only solution, and therefore, security teams need to rethink how they can secure data within the cloud. Companies must be able to access, manage, and analyze data with agility and speed, in-house and remotely, more safely and securely. Cloud data security helps achieve that goal.

Companies also need to comply with data protection and privacy laws and regulations globally. Ensuring that cloud data protection stays compliant with laws around the world can be incredibly hard as businesses must constantly reestablish and enforce security policies across multiple cloud environments. Many cloud data security solutions have built-in technology to help organizations stay up to date on the latest compliance requirements that they must meet.

Implementing a solid cloud data security solution and proper incident response will help better protect and secure data in cloud environments.

How cloud data security works

When choosing a cloud data security solution that works best for your business, you must consider your organizational needs. You need to reduce the risk of threats as much as possible while protecting your data, managing its usage, and always staying operational. Implementing a cloud-native application protection platform (CNAPP) helps optimize your data security efforts by correlating intelligence and distilling that data information into a single view. Data security works by accomplishing the following functions:

Encryption

Encryption is a technique that scrambles data so that only authorized users can view it. This technology ensures that only those with permission can access that data while deterring attackers from leaking, selling, or using that data for consecutive attacks.

Authentication

Before you’re able to gain access to data, implementing authentication technology like passwords, swipe cards, and tokens can help safeguard the system. An identity and access management (IAM) system can quickly verify a person’s identity and grant the permissions needed to complete a task.

Recovery

In case of any system failure, corruption, or breach, you’ll need a plan to recover any critical data. Your team needs a backup in a different format, like a hard drive or local network.

Data erasure

This method ensures data is appropriately discarded so hackers cannot obtain and use that data for malicious purposes. Another option could be data wiping, which erases the unused data, but those files might still be vulnerable to threats. Erasing data instead of data wiping might work better as that data is removed from all storage devices and can’t be recovered.

Data obscuring

By masking letters with proxy characters, you can add another layer to your cloud data protection. Even if attackers can access your data, the information will be unreadable until an authorized user returns it to its original state.

Private cloud

A private cloud is a computing service offered through the internet or private network to select users in a single business. Ensuring that your data is inaccessible to third parties, private clouds offer a high level of security and privacy through firewalls and internal hosting.

Cloud data security and workloads

As businesses adopt more cloud computing services, many are adopting multiple platforms to accommodate the number of diverse cloud workloads. A cloud workload is a series of processes using a specific application, service, capability, or amount of work that runs on a cloud-based resource, including databases, virtual machines, containers, serverless workloads, or applications. Many CIOs and security decision makers define the full workload as the application and the pieces of technology needed to help complete the workload.

To effectively secure any workload within your business, every level of your digital infrastructure hosted by the workload must also be protected and secure. A robust cloud security posture helps minimize the threat of cyberattacks and their potential impact on your business. As cloud-based workloads require a different approach than traditional onsite applications, implementing a cloud workload protection platform (CWPP) helps you harden your cloud data security posture and safeguard those workloads while ensuring businesses can quickly build, run, and secure cloud applications.

Both cloud workloads and data security are critical components in cloud computing. As cloud workloads are the backbone of almost every cloud-based process in your business, ensuring they are defended at every level becomes one of the highest priorities. Cloud data security also ensures that data workloads and all data types are secured. Because cloud data security safeguards all of the cloud data your workloads handle, both cloud data security and cloud workloads are considered essential components in how businesses protect data in the cloud.

Cloud data security benefits

Many businesses are adapting to remote and hybrid work environments all over the world, meaning more access points are vulnerable to threats. Six benefits to implementing cloud data security are:

More visibility. A robust cloud data security solution helps you maintain visibility into your data, including the type of data you have, where it lives, and who’s accessing it at any given time.
More secure data. Cloud storage helps businesses facilitate safe data transfers, storage, and sharing by adding several layers of advanced encryption for data in and out of transit.
Immediate cloud data compliance. The security programs within your solution are designed to meet your compliance requirements constantly. Cloud data loss prevention (DLP) can help discover, classify, and anonymize sensitive data to avoid violations.
Easy backups and recovery. By automating data backups and standardizing your data backup processes, cloud data security can monitor those backups and troubleshoot any potential hurdles. And if a challenge does arise, disaster recovery can recover and restore your data and applications within minutes.
Advanced incident detection. Cloud data security is one of the most important digital innovations for businesses of all sizes. Many solutions offer the latest security features and tools, including AI and built-in security analytics. These additions help scan for suspicious activity, alerting your team sooner and eliminating possible threats earlier.
Lower organizational costs. Cloud data security helps reduce the total cost of ownership, as well as the operational and management responsibilities. Because many cloud data security solutions offer the latest technologies, teams can implement automated processes to streamline integration and continuously alert the team to potential threats.

Threats to cloud data security

While storing data in the cloud has many advantages, difficulties could arise during implementation or execution. Without the proper security configurations, you might run into complex challenges that can not only lead to data breaches but also threaten the integrity of your business.

Data breaches occur whenever unauthorized people gain access to sensitive or confidential information, whether intentionally or by accident. This data might include personal identification information, such as social security numbers, and corporate data, such as financial reports and intellectual property.

By taking steps to protect your cloud resources, you can understand and avoid advanced possible security threats today and in the future.
Some common threats are:

Account hijacking. For users that reuse or use weak passwords—those with only a few characters and numbers—cyberattackers can unearth that information and access any cloud account. Accounts can also be compromised through credential stuffing or password spraying.
Insider risk. The more people with access to your cloud ecosystem, the more chances you have for insider threat or insider risk. The lack of visibility in the cloud network increases the risk of cyberthreats as users with malicious intent gain unauthorized access. This can even extend to users who inadvertently share or store sensitive information.
Social engineering. A cyberattacker may trick an employee into providing information and subsequent access to critical systems and data using social engineering techniques, including phishing. By tricking an employee into providing valuable information or access through specific actions, attackers can get control over an employee’s computer and compromise data.
Unsecure APIs. Many cloud services and apps rely on APIs for functionalities, but APIs might have potential weak spots that attackers could find and use to access cloud accounts. For example, user-based actions might result in API key and credential exposures and pagination attacks.
Shadow IT. Some individuals that install software or cloud applications and services regularly could run shadow IT or malware. Compromised cloud services may have extensive access rights and, in turn, be susceptible to attackers deleting or exfiltrating data.

Cloud data security best practices

By following these cloud data security best practices, you’ll ensure that the controls, technologies, and strategies you require are in place to address cloud-specific data vulnerabilities and protect your confidential information. Some critical elements for your cloud data security strategy include: 

Organizing data

First, gain visibility into your cloud data estate—everywhere cloud data is stored and processed—so you can effectively manage sensitive data as part of your larger data governance strategy. Find and organize structured and unstructured data throughout all your digital stations, including virtual environments, databases, public cloud platforms, and data analytics platforms.

Classifying data

After finding out where that data is, you must determine who uses what data types and when. Data must be classified under type, sensitivity level, and governing regulation, ensuring you understand what data goes where.

Limiting access

Remote and hybrid work environments offer more opportunities for sharing data outside the organization. The more people who have access to your data, the more that data is prone to leakage, losses, or breaches, intentional or otherwise. Having strict access controls and limiting those controls to only the functions necessary to complete each job type is vital. 

Encrypting data

Almost all compliance mandates require businesses to encrypt data-in-transit and data-at-rest. Encryption makes it almost impossible for attackers to use that data, so implementing encryption into your security strategy is a must.

Implementing cloud DLP

Cloud DLP helps organizations create data-centric dashboards to audit reports, automate tasks, and deploy data workloads that reduce business risks. Cloud data security solutions that implement real-time data risk detection across multicloud environments are critical to your data loss prevention tactics. By automating alerts for sensitive data exposure, you ensure real-time protection efforts, creating a secure IT environment for your data.

Hardening cloud data security posture

As you gain visibility into your data processes, you can see how datasets move from within your cloud ecosystem. Data Security Posture Management (DSPM) is a strategy that consistently monitors and assesses possible security risks related to your cloud data, such as misconfigured permissions to storage and databases. You can quickly identify and tackle security threats by managing those data flows and creating stricter rules for users through DSPM.

Continuous monitoring

Cloud environments are dynamic, so you must constantly monitor all your data flows. Using threat modeling and intelligence, you can detect real-time threats to your data estate. Malware scanning tools and capabilities help ensure that you’ll find and remove malicious software before it can disrupt and damage your data processes. Malware prevention methods can also detect and block system attacks, helping prevent massive data and financial losses.

Creating a single source for all cloud data

For complete visibility into all of your data flows, create a single source to monitor, resolve, and document all data activity. Here, you can get a data-centric view of content to prioritize risks, automate the mediation of data access violations, and audit based on cloud, geographical location, or compliance standards.

Cloud data security solutions

The need for a solid organizational security solution for cloud data grows daily. Having robust cloud infrastructure security helps protect your business from the devastating effects of cyberattacks and malicious threats. Implementing a cloud data security solution with cyber threat intelligence can help you detect threats, respond to them, and recover possible cloud data loss. Offering that level of security across multiple clouds in your organization is vital.

Microsoft Security offers cloud data security solutions to help detect, report, and respond to internal and external threats in real time, wherever you are. Featuring comprehensive cloud data protection, Microsoft Security offers your business the ability to customize its security efforts and response options for a wide range of threats to different workload types, all while improving your security posture and staying compliant.

Learn how to protect your cloud infrastructure >

Microsoft Defender for Cloud

Protect remote and hybrid environments with comprehensive CNAPP capabilities.

Strengthen your security

Three coworkers looking at a laptop together

Microsoft Defender Cloud Security Posture Management

Monitor your multicloud security posture for vulnerabilities and risks.

Reduce critical risks

Microsoft Purview Data Loss Prevention

Prevent data leakages and losses across apps, services, and devices.

Control your data

Microsoft Purview Information Protection

Safeguard how you manage, secure, and protect data in any environment.

Protect your data

FAQ

Data is protected in the cloud through cloud storage, backups, and disaster recovery.
Data in the cloud is very secure—through encryption, limiting access, continuous monitoring, data erasure, data obscuring, compliance regulations, and authentication measures.
Data security is important in cloud computing because it protects all of your data, in motion and at rest, from cyberthreats, unauthorized access, theft, and corruption.
Some of the challenges of cloud data security are account hijacking, insider risk, social engineering like phishing, APIs, and shadow IT.

Everyone within your organization is responsible for securing your cloud data. 