Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS), a cloud computing deployment model, has become quite popular among businesses. With the help of IaaS infrastructure, you can access on-demand scalable resources managed by the chosen cloud provider without investing in on-premise computing resources. Indeed, IaaS is budget-friendly, takes less time for deployment, and is highly reliable. However, if one thing makes business owners think twice when switching to hosting business applications on the cloud, it’s the infrastructural security.
The cost of a single data breach has increased exponentially to USD 4.35 million in 2022 (Source). It represents a 12.7% rise in comparison to the cost in 2020. The growing risk and GDPR compliance make it essential to consider how your cloud hosting provider will ensure data security. You could be at risk if you are not fortunate enough to select a cloud provider with a lax approach to maintaining security.
Maintaining IaaS security isn’t straightforward. It requires knowing exactly what you need to look out for.
5 Things on Your IaaS Security Checklist
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Information security infrastructure
When you hire a cloud hosting provider for a dedicated server or application hosting needs, you are asking to use their infrastructure and pay the price. Since its management and complete control lies in the vendor’s hands, you need to ensure that there is no loophole in the IT setup that could lead to the loss of your data.
As cybercrime continues to increase, you need to look for a cloud partner whose infrastructure is sound and secure based on rigorous measures that ensure complete data integrity. Ask for details about the security practices deployed for the cloud infrastructure and compare them with the industry standards.
Also Read: A Complete Guide to Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS)
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Data compliance management
Besides the security measures checklist, you would also want to look for industry compliance attestations and security certifications. For example, most cloud solution providers promote their services through data security pledges and certifications that symbolize their level of commitment to data handling and security assessments.
You can look for certifications and compliances such as:
- SOC 2/ SOC 3 attestation
- PCI-DSS compliance certification
- GDPR Compliance
- HIPAA and SSAE-16 certification for the associated data centers
At Verito, we provide top-notch security benefits to our clients who rely on us for data and application hosting. We are also AICPA SOC compliant and are proud partners with the National Association of Enrolled Agents (NAEA).
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Admin controls
You might have heard cloud hosting providers offering authorized user control to the cloud-hosted data. It is worth confirming that the vendor you select for such solutions adopts sophisticated technology to protect cloud-hosted data.
For instance, you can check for the level of access controls that can be provided to different members in your organization to work on cloud-hosted QuickBooks. For example, if some users only need read access to the hosted data, it makes sense not to provide complete sub-admin access to them to avoid the risk of an unauthorized data breach. Your cloud provider should go the extra mile by specifying the controls you might need for server access/configuration.
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Data encryption
In technical terms, data encryption refers to the security method by which the information is encoded or encrypted and can only be accessed by authorized users with the required decryption key. As a result, the encrypted data appears unreadable or scrambled to an entity trying to access the same without your permission.
Renowned cloud hosting providers use data encryption as one of their security measures to deter malicious parties from accessing sensitive client data. If you, as a part of your business, handle business-critical data related to your clients, you must check for this aspect while hiring an IaaS provider.
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Rolling backup
If you only had the experience of hosting data and applications on local systems, you might have faced situations like accidental file deletion or malware leading to data loss. Similarly, there can be instances like natural disasters that often lead to both software and hardware failure, hence putting businesses in jeopardy with compliance laws and loss of clients.
Keeping this in mind, you must look for a cloud hosting provider that ensures a rolling back. Here, the term ‘rolling’ means that you can roll the data (maybe a month old or 15 days old) back into your systems to continue business operations. The number of days this rolling backup is provided varies from one cloud provider to another.
All in all, you need to partner with a cloud hosting provider that gives utmost importance to your data’s security, compliance, and privacy as much as you do. Therefore, it is worth looking out for these intrinsic parameters to get what you need. To find out more about Verito’s cloud solution, click here.
