Enterprise IT employees in charge of communications and collaboration have developed a renewed knowledge and appreciation of cloud security due to the increase in working from home caused primarily by the pandemic.
Cloud security is now being viewed as a need rather than a luxury. This is because of the blending of home and work environments and the significant increase in the usage of cloud services.
Most likely, the average office worker or contact center representative has never worked remotely. Now, they have effectively established a backdoor into other corporate systems from a network they share with someone who may be playing Xbox or watching Netflix. They may have no idea how to start a VPN client, let alone ensure all the options are configured correctly. Additionally, they likely use the same login and password for all of their cloud-based apps, especially if these accounts were swiftly created in an effort to get everything set up at home. This presents yet another security consideration.
This is why picking the best cloud service provider is a decision to take seriously. Understanding how they manage private business data is of significant importance, especially in light of many new federal regulations for handling personal data, obtaining emergency assistance, and more.
Businesses must consider a few critical data handling and security points when assessing a potential cloud vendor. Here are 11 questions for which businesses require solutions.
Who will actually have custody of their data after it is outside of a business' direct management will be one of the main considerations for many businesses when considering the cloud. Companies should ask their provider for guarantees about the alternatives available to them for establishing and enforcing regulations at all points of the data lifecycle, from creation to deletion.
Before any business joins a cloud provider, secure access control procedures are another must. These must include information on the safeguards put in place to limit access to data, the precise rules that IT teams will be allowed to adopt, and the procedures to be followed in order to identify and prevent illegal access.
Regarding access control policies, cloud vendors must be able to describe how they keep track of what happens in a user's account, such as which users are accessing which files and when, who is changing settings or permissions, and how simple it will be to alert administrators and roll back to earlier versions in the event of any suspicious activity.
If you want to be sure that the data for your company is appropriately safeguarded, you must also be aware of the encryption standards that cloud suppliers use. Ask them about how they handle encryption keys and their encryption standards since anything less than 256-bit Advanced Encryption Standard (AES) level encryption should be avoided.
What procedures will the provider take to ensure your data is adequately separated from other customers while hosting your digital assets in huge data centers alongside the data of numerous users on the same servers? To ensure that no one else can access your data, check that the provider can offer a thorough overview of their virtual technologies. Requesting a demo from a provider is always a good place to start when dealing with cloud communications.
Another essential item to understand is the backup plans a cloud vendor has in place in the event that data is lost, erased, or damaged. Businesses must know how much data storage they can guarantee and how many backup copies they maintain in case of a data loss.
It's important to understand what happens if your partnership with a cloud provider terminates. The provider will, at this time, store vast volumes of crucial business data; hence it is essential that this data can be easily extracted and moved to another provider. Will the data be sent in a format that is simple to use? How can the work be completed swiftly and with the least amount of interruption? What guarantees exist between the vendor and the removal of all data from its servers?
When handling data in the cloud, it is key to look at data control, data residence, and data localization when assessing possible cloud providers. Understanding where your data will be physically housed is crucial since it will determine whose legal jurisdiction it is subject to, which might ultimately affect your compliance. For instance, certain nations may have regulations dictating the circumstances in which data may be accessed without the owner's knowledge. In contrast, others may place limitations on which nation users may lawfully move their data.
Most cloud providers provide a shared responsibility model where both the vendor and the client contribute to specific tasks, even though legally, the data owner is ultimately responsible. Users must thus be aware of which responsibilities will be handled by the provider, often the underlying networking and storage infrastructure, and which will stay in their control, typically the data itself, the applications, and firewall configurations.
Service outages present serious challenges to any organization. So you need to be fully aware of the uptime guarantees that your vendor provides and the quantity of compensation you may anticipate if these requirements aren't satisfied.
When looking at cloud-based phone systems, ask about what options are available to keep your phone calls coming in. Look into backup options to power your business phones or mobile apps that can utilize cellular networks.
All of this should be included in your service level agreement, but it's crucial to understand that disruptions may still occur even if businesses are fulfilling their contractual duties. A 99.9% uptime guarantee may seem reliable. However, it still allows room for several hours of downtime annually, which must be considered if you're using the service to operate vital applications.
Asking for their certifications is the best method to confirm that cloud service providers are committed to protecting customer data. Various industry standards govern cloud security. You should confirm the extent of these certifications to ensure they cover the provider's activities and ensure cloud suppliers adhere to established standards.
We advise you to ask the same questions to each cloud service provider your business works with or is considering partnering with. You'll have a far better idea of how precisely they can and will manage the particular demands of your organization once you've received their responses.
Be prepared and willing to decline their services if you still believe the risks are too great or if they didn't offer you sufficient answers to your questions. Then, you may begin or continue your search for a dependable cloud service provider.
Check out our guide on How to Pick the Right VoIP Provider for even more information on cloud-based communications services.
Still have questions about cloud communications? Connect with us, and a member of our customer service team will reach out to you as soon as possible to answer your questions, provide assistance, and get you on your way to a safe and secure cloud experience.