The average cost of a data breach in the UK has risen to nearly £2.7 million, according to an IBM report. To utilize internet to its full potential, we must shield ourselves against overly smart cyber-attackers. Online ids, though a big help to real-world problems, comes with its own set of troubles. Unlike physical identification, online id can be pilfered, duplicated, and even mutilated to serve someone’s wicked interests.
The reputation harm arising out of id duplication would be incalculable. The knot is that online id systems rely heavily, and often completely on data to establish authenticity from the server. A handful of data is all it would take for someone to gain control of your identification.
Fuelled by the campaigns that arose awareness against clouds, quite a few businesses have moved to cheap VPS hosting in UK from cloud servers.
As we are moving to the world of online storage, more and more data- and even the sensitive ones- are being dumped, as if not required, to cloud servers. No doubt, all round-the-clock availability and round-the-world accessibility has streamlined the way our companies work, but to attain the present ease of data-access cloud providers have cut corners, especially with data security.
Multi-storeyed storage
Data as binary code in virtualized cloud server is not stored at one place, but is rather dispersed in storeys. Not all storeys are equally secured. Data from even one of the storeys would give enough lead to attackers who can then dig more data on the user.
Storing data at multiple locations
To ensure accessibility all around the world, cloud servers replicate data in all of its data centers situated in multiple locations. Primarily, data is retrieved from server closest to the workstation from where the access has been requested. It’s a no-brainer that data stored in multiple locations are more prone to theft than data in one place. Besides, it is easier to safeguard a single asset than it is to safeguard several assets concurrently.
Third-party access
Many organizations have stepped back from cloud servers at the idea of granting rights for their data to an unknown third party. Though providers tout a zero-mutilation policy against data, there are no means to check whether or not, has the data been mutilated.
Undue attention from cyber-attackers
Attackers are in constantly look for a pool of data, and the number of users cloud servers store data for makes it vulnerable to an attack. To date, though there has not been any tangible damage from hacking-attempts made on cloud servers, the cloud providers may have never disclosed attacks in view of saving their business from collapsing.
Low cost raising suspicions
What dedicated server and VPS provides, cloud servers provide at nearly 5 times lesser price. Even though cheap cloud servers, in the past, have ignited migration of business from conventional storage alternatives, many look upon its low-budget offerings with suspicion, raising questions on its security. The possible explanation to providers providing such bargain services could be a compromise on other over-looked aspects of cloud, not completely ruling out the possibility of compromise on data security.
Internet dependence
Cloud servers have further inflated dependence on the internet for a world that was already monomaniac about it. Clouds are only as good as the internet they are working on. It’s no use taking high-performance cloud services with clumsier internet that can completely blow operations off the table in case of connection outage.
Cost inflation
To say clouds are cheap wouldn’t be true completely, neither would it be false. Virtualized storage servers appear cheaper only because they rely on operating expenditure rather than capital expenditure that most other servers rely on. Over the long run, the consolidated cost of cloud server is likely to overrun the cost of owning a server establishment. Notwithstanding that dedicated servers are expensive to set up at first, they become almost free over the span of time as there is no intermittent expenditure involved like in the case of cloud servers.
Upshot
There is more to cloud servers than meets the eye. Providers, through excessive marketing, have successfully implanted a general misconception of cloud’s superiority on all traits of a server, which with some research doesn’t seem as satisfying as it did before. Security, however, shall continue to dictate as the major-concern with such servers, and one cannot completely ignore the impact that a single breach is capable of making. A little awareness could prove to be beneficial in several ways, particularly when it concerned about data that your business relies upon for its existence.
