Is It 100% Safe to Store Your Data In the Cloud?

Before we begin answering this question, let’s understand what the cloud is and why it is becoming important in the modern digital world. The cloud is a server that runs using highly sophisticated software and databases. These servers are present in data centers worldwide.

Today our life is completely intertwined with the cloud. Almost everyone’s data are on the cloud, either directly or indirectly. As an explanation, you can buy or rent cloud storage to store large amounts of data directly on them. On the other hand, your data is indirectly stored on the cloud via companies or services. E.g. shopping websites, social media websites, gaming services, online music providers etc. All of these companies store your data in the cloud. So you can see that the cloud has become an integral part of our daily lives.

Now let’s back to the question, is it 100% safe to store your data in the cloud? And the answer is not that simple. All major cloud providers use very sophisticated features like encryption to secure your data, and the algorithms written for this encryption are very advanced.

The cloud is indeed much more secure than the other platforms. While intruders will always take a considerable effort to be able to hack the cloud and read data, does that mean it’s 100% safe? No, but that would require a massive amount of processing power and complex decryption algorithms to be done. However, choosing the right file hosting and cloud storage service provider like Mega can help you store your data and sophisticated information in the cloud with maximum security. You can check mega premium accounts features to compare with other cloud service providers.

In some cases, companies assign a decryption key to every single user, and the only way to decipher the data is via that key. Even if the information is stolen or accessed in an unauthorized manner, it’s useless without the decryption key.

Let us try to understand why there is concern about cloud storage, and the biggest reason you will find is the lack of control over one’s data storage and the fact that we live in a world where every other day we hear news about data leaks and breaches doesn’t help either.

Here we discussed a few facts to understand the risks of storing your data in the cloud.

Risks Of Storing Data On The Cloud

1. One of the most common breaches happens from the user’s end. As you all know, today we have millions of different accounts, and the security of those accounts is based on your own password. We tend to keep simpler passwords because they are more comfortable for us to remember. Still, weak passwords allow intruders to quickly gain access to all your data, making it vulnerable.

2. Malware, Ransomware, Phishing, Denial of service (DoS) are some of the ways cybercriminals use to attack large companies to steal all their user data and then use it to ask for ransom or, even worse, sell it to other criminals who can misuse it.

3. Insider job is also one of the reasons that can put your data at risk. Some breaches do happen because someone inside the companies provides unfettered access to Cybercriminals leaving your data vulnerable.

4. Untrustworthy cloud storage providers. Like any other service provider, there is always a chance that the cloud storage provider you choose can’t keep your data safe from attacks or worse. You will even see that some of them are selling data illegally, breaking the trust of their customers.

What Can Be Done To Minimize These Risks?

01. Start by keeping solid passwords for your accounts. If you need help with that, some great password managers can help you create unique and strong passwords, and they are not easy to crack. Use multiple authentications if your account has that feature, which can assure one more step towards the security of your account and keep your data more secure.

02. Companies need to do their part in ensuring data safety. Regular safety checks and safety analysis needs to be done. While cloud storage providers have ways to protect your data from cyberattacks or even natural disasters, It’s still a smart idea to keep a back up of your data to your home servers so that important information doesn’t get lost.

03. Breaking trust by insiders – it’s tough to know whether an employee will betray the company’s trust or not. Still, it’s not hard for companies to implement a few essential things to protect their customer’s data as a precaution. One of these is to carefully verify the backgrounds of employees who handle large amounts of data. Assigning responsibilities to only the most reliable staff to manage data security can avoid the possibility of breaches.

04. As the world moves forward, we are becoming more and more digital. In this modern world, it’s also the user’s responsibility to increase their digital literacy enough to understand basics. If you are opting for cloud storage, it should be your primary job to do research on the provider and check its history.

Knowing the difference between legitimate or fake URLs and email IDs used for phishing scams can go a long way in maintaining your data security. If the data is highly sensitive, you can always take another step towards ensuring its security by using encryption software to encrypt data at your end and then uploading it to the cloud.

Final Thoughts

So, is your data 100% secure in the cloud? No, like any other technology, cloud storage has its downsides. Does that mean you should stop using it, and the answer is no? Cloud storage is still one of the safest ways of storing your data. All you need to do is follow a set of steps that can ensure the security of your data