Looking at Clouds From Both Sides Now: The Perils of Cloud Computing

When you store your photos, your creative work, your lists and data in an online app do you really know who owns/controls the data you just uploaded? ?

Do you know what the company does with your data, who it’s shared with?? Do you know where the data is stored geographically?? Whether it is encrypted both in transit and at rest?

Do you know if the company storing your data has a history of data breaches or security issues????

It’s in the Cloud, that’s all most of us are aware of.

In the timeless verses of Joni Mitchell's "Both Sides, Now," clouds are a metaphor for life's illusions. Today, in the digital landscape, clouds have taken on a new form—one that is equally enigmatic and pervasive: Cloud Computing.

As with the song, we've looked at Cloud Computing from both sides now—from its dazzling conveniences to the chilling risks that come with the territory.

Just a decade ago, the Cloud was a budding frontier, rich with the promise of on-demand resources, unlimited scalability, and an end to the oppression of physical storage. Businesses jumped at the opportunity to pivot, innovate, and drop the restraints of on-premises limitations. Consumers embraced the digital expanse with abandon, uploading lifetimes of memories and data into this seemingly boundless space.

Our photos, conversations, and documents all reside in a nebulous place, accessible from any corner of the world. The cloud has made the globe smaller and our lives easier, enabling a level of connectivity that was once the stuff of science fiction.

The Gathering Storm: Privacy and Security

However, the Cloud has a darker side.?? The more we depend on digital services, the more we risk.??? Data breaches have become a mainstay in the news, a dark reminder that what goes up into the Cloud can sometimes fall prey to cyber threats.

Take for instance, the Capital One breach of 2019, where a staggering 100 million individuals had their personal data siphoned away due to a misconfigured web application firewall on Amazon Web Services.?? Not far behind was the Microsoft debacle in 2020, with 250 million customer records exposed to the elements of cyberspace because of similarly mismanaged Cloud security.

In Europe, the Vastaamo Clinic incident in Finland was a particularly sensitive breach, where the Finnish psychotherapy clinic’s data was held for ransom after attackers gained access to a Cloud database that wasn’t properly secured.

And perhaps no incident more vividly illustrates the risks of data-sharing and third-party Cloud apps than the Facebook-Cambridge Analytica scandal, where the personal data of millions was compromised.

The Trade-Off: Control for Convenience

With the Cloud, we’ve surrendered a level of control.?? Data, once stored securely on personal hard drives and in filing cabinets, now resides on servers scattered across the globe.? Privacy policies, often labyrinthine, can obscure the reality of data ownership and sovereignty.? And while encryption and security protocols form a barrier against cyber incursions, no system is impervious.

The question becomes not if, but when, and how we prepare and respond to such inevitabilities.

Understanding Cloud Computing:? The Good and the Risks ?

As we move forward with using the Cloud for our digital needs, it’s important to find the right balance.?? We have to consider how the easy access and new ideas from cloud services might be offset by risks to our privacy and safety.

For Businesses:? Businesses need to be open and responsible, making sure they protect customer data and rights just as strongly as they focus on growing their company.

For Consumers:? Vigilance is the watchword.? Knowing the service rules, using good security habits, and keeping up-to-date with information is how you can protect yourself from the dangers of using the Cloud. ??Always check if the tool allows you to export your data, so that you are not locked into the service and can maintain a copy.

Ultimately, it is up to each user to weigh the functionality and convenience of cloud-based tools against any potential privacy risks.? ?Most online tools do require users to trust the service with their data, so here’s a few steps you can take for extra protection.

#CloudSecurity #CyberSecurity #DataProtection #CyberRisk

?

?

?