Enterprise IT: Don’t Bury Your Head in the Sand on Cloud Data Protection

Grazed from Sys Con Media. Author: David Canellos.

In a lot of ways, changes in enterprise technology have mirrored consumer technology trends over the last few years. Just look at mobility, social apps, and cloud computing as examples. And whether you view the crossover as advantageous, overly risky, or merely inevitable, it’s certain that enterprise IT security must adapt quickly to the new challenges presented, including overcoming cloud data security, cloud data residency, and cloud compliance issues.

A series of recent articles and industry analyst reports I have read shows the clear trend that business-critical apps like CRM, storage, and collaboration – enterprise IT’s mainstays – are now moving towards cloud and mobile, despite inherent risks. In the case of mobile, workers are simply more productive and comfortable using their smartphones, laptops, and tablets to access company information of all types from a variety of locations. Similarly with the cloud, the benefits are simply too compelling for the business organizations inside of the enterprise. And rather than burying their heads in the sand, enterprise IT managers need to adapt security practices accordingly, or ban the use of personal devices and cloud altogether – an unlikely choice given recent trends…

The economic advantages of cloud SaaS applications are too good to overlook, whether coupled with BYOD or not. But enterprises need a security platform that enables them to create and execute consistent cloud data security policies without having to work with multiple vendors, tools, and approaches to address each application’s needs. Further, enterprises must segregate duties to optimize cloud SaaS security. As recently reported in NetWork World, Gartner analyst John Pescatore stated that "as you move out to cloud-based models, there are some things you can trust your cloud provider with, but for critical business data and regulation-controlled information, very rarely is the infrastructure going to be enough." The security layer must be separate from the SaaS application to ensure there are no security/functionality trade-offs, particularly with Search & Sort functions. Cloud security companies like PerspecSys, which specialize in cloud data protection using cloud encryption and tokenization, can provide this critical segregation. The result? Enterprise IT can implement cloud solutions safely, leveraging the latest technological breakthroughs and empowering their employees with the most productive and flexible tools available.