The Doppler Quarterly Special Edition 2019 | Page 81

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 the most on-premises systems. Actually, your public cloud security can surpass your on-premises 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 systems have better thought-out secu- rity mechanisms than those in traditional data centers. So, why do many enterprises still dis- trust the cloud? What public clouds bring to the table are better security mechanisms and paranoia as a default, given how juicy they are as targets. The cloud providers are much better at sys- temic security services, such as looking out for attacks using pattern matching technology and even AI systems. This com- bination means they have very secure systems. It should be no surprise that the hackers move on to easier pickings: enterprise data centers. The on-premises 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 providers. This is simply because the old, on-premises technology was designed for an earlier era of less sophisticated threats. The mixture of different technologies in the typical on-premises data center also opens up more gaps for hackers to exploit. Because on-premises 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 organiza- tions are, and likely more proactive than they can each afford to be. So, why have you not gone big with cloud security? Perhaps 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, the largest SPECIAL EDITION 2019 | THE DOPPLER | 79