Are Cloud Solutions Secure For Businesses In Nigeria?
Every organization has to deal with data at some point. Whether it is data of its clients, or the data of its inventory, or the code of its platforms. One of the issues that often come up with data usage is storing the data. Because data is sensitive for business growth, as a business, you must store your data in a manner that you can refer to it anytime you need it, and ensure it is safe from prying eyes like competitors or hackers who might want to use your data to harm your business or you personally.
For the above reasons, many businesses are turning to cloud storage, and companies that specialize in creating cloud storage solutions are starting to thrive. However, in a country like Nigeria, where internet penetration is low, and there are few cybersecurity experts, many businesses are still afraid to try cloud-based solutions. Most cannot trust another company to manage their data effectively, no matter how reputable.
If you are a Nigerian business person or a head of an organization, and you wonder if storing your data in the cloud is safe and secure for your business, the answer to your question is yes. Cloud storage is the safest and most secure form of data storage that you can find.
How Cloud Storage Can Benefit Your Business
As a Nigerian business, cloud storage solutions can benefit you in many ways, in this section, I will discuss some of those benefits.
1. Encryption
Cloud solutions ensure that whatever data that is stored on the cloud is encrypted. There are several encryption formats that cloud solutions use to store your data. The most common format of encryption is end to end encryption. End to end encryption is so secure that it is only you, the business owner who has the encryption key and nobody, not even your cloud storage provider can access it. It ensures that you have nothing to fear in terms of data safety.
2. 24/7 Monitoring
Many cloud-based solution providers are cybersecurity experts or have cybersecurity experts monitoring your data twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. With them you can be sure that your data is safe and secure. It is much more secure than putting your data in a single system that can be accessed by any hacker who finds your password or who can track your information via a phishing scam.
3. Proper Backup
Instead of storing your data in one place, cloud solutions store your data on several servers. Thus ,if one server becomes corrupted or one data center is destroyed in a fire or an earthquake, your data is recorded elsewhere. If your data is on a single physical server and something happens to that device, everything is lost.
4. 24/7 Access
With cloud-based solutions, you can access your data from wherever you are. In a country like Nigeria where terrible power infrastructure and long hours in traffic (especially in the busier cities) may require that you work from outside your office sometimes. Having reliable storage for your data that is always there whenever you need to access it is great for your business.
How To Protect Your Business from Data Security Breaches
Having listed the various advantages of cloud storage, I should note here that while loss of data and security breaches in cloud storage are rare, they also happen. Thus, as a Nigerian business owner, you must take steps to protect yourself. The following are a few of them:
1. Use Your multi-Factor Authentication
The most popular cloud-based solutions often mandate you to use two or more options to protect your account. You can use two or three-factor authentication depending on how secure you want your data to be. This ensures that even if a hacker manages to crack your password, your account is still well protected.
2. Do your research
There are several cloud-based solutions operators out there, and some of them are less than reputable. However, there are a number of them that are reputable yet affordable. Do your research and follow the trends before you commit to any cloud services provider.
3. Protect passwords and encryption keys
Most hacks into cloud servers do not come from the provider’s end, they come from the customer’s end. Ensure that as few as possible people have access to the most sensitive data. If several members of the team need to access the database, ensure that there is someone in your organization who tracks everybody who accesses the cloud and when and where they access it.
4. Disconnect your devices from your cloud account.
A lot of cloud server users stay logged in to their accounts 24/7. Their excuse is often that they want to avoid the stress of logging into their account all the time. However, you need to think about what happens when your device gets lost or stolen, and an unauthorized person accesses it.
Apart from your device(s) being stolen, if you are using unsecured internet access, such as an open Wi-Fi, keeping your device in your cloud account might allow unauthorized personal access to your account.
Conclusion
From everything that we have discussed, it is very obvious why as a business in Nigeria, you need the security of cloud storage. A safe, secure place to store your data and also back it up properly in the case of any disasters. A place where you can access your data wherever you are and whenever you want. This is what a secure cloud services provider does for your business.
If you can take note of the measures to protect yourself like we have discussed above, you can be certain that your data is safe from hackers and other unauthorized persons who wish to use your data for malicious purposes.
As a business transformation focused consulting firm, we provide managed cloud services in partnership with Microsoft. We can help you deploy a fully secured cloud solution for your entire organization. Talk to us today if you want to move to the cloud.