Cloud backup security – is it weaker than on-premises system ?

Data security

These last years cloud computing proved its worth. Henceforth, the value of data management and moreover data risk management (e.g. G suite cloud backup security and Office 365 cloud backup security) has been increasing in line.

Nowadays, most companies believe in the need to severely improve the security and availability of their data storage access. Yet only a few understand the value of an extended cloud backup security. However, the benefits cloud backup can bring became clearer, and don’t appear anymore as an unnecessary luxury once acknowledged this : Users themselves causes 75% of the cases data loss, not external threat.

Nevertheless, many users, CEOs,  and IT Administrators,  feel that cloud  computing  has  too  many  shortcomings.  They still mention the arguments of security and privacy issues in the cloud.

So let’s be clear, – clouds are more secure than traditional systems ! Why is that ?

That’s because the difference of threat level between cloud backup (including Gmail backup and Outlook backup) and conventional backup is not as important as infrastructure location and security level. Moreover, anything that can be possibly accessed (whether it’s an enterprise or a cloud) meets the same threat level.

Indeed security attacks are a concern either for off-premises and on-premises environments. However, it seems that usual on-premises systems are actually more targeted than service provider environments.

In 2014, the USA Alert Cloud Security report pointed out an interesting fact. On-premises users experience around 61.4 attacks, while SaaS customers meet an average of only 27.8. Besides on-premises environment users usually suffer significantly more brutal and harmful attacks than SaaS platform.

So definitely, to say cloud computing is inherently less secure than traditional approaches is nothing more than a myth.

This point of view might be due to the approach itself which may feel insecure to some extent. Because your data is stored on servers and systems you don’t own or control.

Yet, controlling the backup environment doesn’t mean securing it. And in a matter of fact, your storage location matters less than its accessibility. This is the case for both cloud-based systems and traditional backup solutions.

Moreover, companies that build cloud-based solutions for business (e.g. corporate gmail backup, corporate outlook backup) rather focus on security and risk management in comparison with those who build systems that will exist inside firewalls. Simply because they understand that the success of their entire business depends on it.

Systems missing the same discipline around security won’t just be as secure. Whether they are cloud based or not. So the idea here is not to focus much on the platform itself. The main is to understand what a well-defined and executed security management strategy means. Only the right enabling technology can ensure to avoid potential security issues.

But still, without the right amount of planning and good technology, cloud-based platforms can become risky. And it goes the same for your existing enterprise systems. Nothing comes free.

For all these reasons at Upsafe we have the highest concern about our user security and privacy. We provide to all, and not only our premium customers, AES 256-bit Encryption to protect their Google G suite backup and Office 365 backup data. Likewise, we work closely with AWS program to provide the safest data storage environment. Moreover, we choose to locate by default our data storage in the USA that experienced four times fewer security attacks than Europe. However, we still offer our users to choose the data storage location either in Europe or in the United States.