Cloud can be seen as a risk or an opportunity by an organisation depending on their experience and knowledge.

While cloud has been around for some time and used by many large global companies it was often not accessible to the masses.  However, it is only in recent years that it has become more accessible to small and medium enterprises.

Risk or opportunity?

When weighing up the pros and cons of anything you have to take all the information that is available and decide what is relevant.   Once you have the knowledge only then can you make an informed decision.

Security Threats – old threats in a new environment

Let’s take an example to help us evaluate if the cloud gives us opportunities.  When we look at the risk of a data breach we will immediately start to imagine real business costs emerging.  The loss of information will cause downtime which in turn is a business cost.  However, the real cost could be loss in reputation which results in loss of clients and even bigger financial losses.   This risk was always in existence, even before the cloud came on your agenda.

Attacks on cloud are less likely than on traditional data centres or internal systems.  With cloud you have ways to help you increase security with innovative approaches designed to detect threats long before they threaten your enterprise.

Hackers are still operating in the same space as before but now they are coming up against more sophisticated cloud based security systems.  With data that is encrypted throughout its cloud journey this threat is lessened when the cloud is the solution.

Data Loss

Data Loss is where a company mislays or accidentally deletes information that is still critical to the business.  In this case it is usually human error or it can happen when a file gets corrupted.  In the past when a laptop was stolen the data contained within was lost forever, however, now with data stored in the cloud all is not lost to the business.  Plus, the files on the laptop will be encrypted so are useless to any would be criminal.

File corruption can be prevented by improving endpoint security options and email that is filtered protects users.  There are so many more security options available when the cloud is part of your IT infrastructure.

IBM Cloud is enterprise grade dedicated private cloud available to businesses in Ireland today.  DNA IT Solutions are one of a handful of partners in the market today that can offer your business this valuable solution.  If you are looking for added protection in the cloud market, don’t fear it, talk to us instead.