Cloud computing comes with distinct advantages such as excellent accessibility, improved collaboration, unlimited storage capacity, mobility and much more. Away from offices and hard drives, users rely on remote servers that let them view files and data in real time. Businesses and government operations are increasingly shifting workload to the cloud. But this amazing technology is not without certain degree of security risks and is prone to data breach.

Here’s everything you need to know about security risks of cloud computing:

• Data breach & data loss: Data breach takes place when confidential data becomes viable to unintended users, is stolen or accessed by unauthorized persons. This can directly or indirectly result in data loss, data becoming corrupted and unusable to authorized users or its owner. A leading reason for such breach and loss of data is due to incorrect configuration of cloud security settings.
• Unauthorized access: With cloud-based deployments being off-premises, they remain outside any restricted network perimeter and become directly accessible from public networks. While the feature is at the very base of storage and accessibility to huge data, it also makes them extremely vulnerable by making it accessible to unauthorized users. This increases the vulnerability of the data when security if is not properly configured.
• Insecure APIs & hacked interfaces: Content Security Policy usually have several APIs or application programming interfaces for their users. The well-documented interfaces make them easy to use, but at the same time increase potential risks in case the customer does not secure them for the cloud infrastructure. In such cases, the documentation can be used by cyber criminals to identify ways to gain access to sensitive data from the cloud environment.
• Denial of Service (DoS) attacks: Denial of Service attacks usually occur when the system has to handle too much traffic. Large organizations and public sector utility service providers like banks and merchant organizations are most prone to such attacks. Such attacks can completely shut down networks, machines and operations. Attackers usually accomplish their task by flooding the network with a rush of traffic thus disabling the server from buffering them. As a result services become inaccessible to those that have legitimate access to the network.
• Hijacking of accounts: Organizations and individuals using weak security passwords are those that are most prone to account hijacking. The problem is compounded when such people become subject to phishing attempts. In such cases, stolen credentials are used to access multiple accounts and platforms. This can even happen within the organization where employees credentials are used to access sensitive functionality and data embedded within, giving full access to customer credentials. Cloud infrastructures become extremely vulnerable if they are not secured with adequate infrastructure.
• Vendor lock-in: Yet another top cloud security issue, this is likely to strike when organizations move their services from the existing vendor to another. With different vendors providing varying platforms and network systems, organizations not only face difficulty in a smooth switch over but are also exposed to cyber security threats making the transition period, however brief it may be, extremely vulnerable.
• External data sharing: Cloud is designed to facilitate data sharing such as collaborating through mails or shared links. While making communication and connections easy, it also has a vulnerable face as anyone with URL access can get to the shared resources. Link-based sharing is a popular option today as it can be easily forwarded but at the same time cyber criminals have easy access to anything that the link connects to. The worst drawback is that link-based sharing does not allow revoking of access to a single recipient once it has been shared.

Cloud-based infrastructure is very different from traditional on-premise data repertoires calling for professional expertise in securing them. Most organizations are unfamiliar with such a security process.