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Cloud backup- Cloud adoption was already strong heading into 2020. According to a study by O’Reilly, 88% of businesses were using the cloud in some form in January 2020. The global pandemic just accelerated the move to SaaS tools. This seismic shift where businesses live day-to-day means a massive amount of business data is making its way into the cloud.
All this data is absolutely critical for core business functions. However, it is all too often mistakenly considered “safe” thanks to blind trust in the SaaS platform. But human error, cyberattacks, platform updates and software integrations can all easily compromise or erase that data … and totally destroy a business.
According to Microsoft, 94% of businesses report security benefits since moving to the cloud. Although there are definitely benefits, data is by no means fully protected – and the threat to cloud data continues to rise, especially as it ends up spread across multiple applications.
Organizations continue to overlook the simple steps they can take to better protect cloud data and their business. In fact, our 2020 Ecommerce Data Protection Survey found that one in four businesses has already experienced data loss that immediately impacted sales and operations.
Cloud data security illusions
Many companies confuse cloud storage with cloud backup. Cloud storage is just that – you’ve stored your data in the cloud. But what if, three years later, you need a record of that data and how it was moved or changed for an audit? What if you are the target of a cyberattack and suddenly your most important data is no longer accessible? What if you or an employee accidentally delete all the files tied to your new product line?
Simply storing data in the cloud does not mean it is fully protected. The ubiquity of cloud services like Box, Dropbox, Microsoft 365, Google G Suite/Drive, etc., has created the illusion that cloud data is protected and easily accessible in the event of a data loss event. Yet even the most trusted providers manage data by following the Shared Responsibility Model.
The same goes for increasingly popular business apps like BigCommerce, GitHub, Shopify, Slack, Trello, QuickBooks Online, Xero, Zendesk and thousands of other SaaS applications. Cloud service providers only fully protect system-level infrastructure and data. So while they ensure reliability and recovery for system-wide failures, the cloud app data of individual businesses is still at risk.
In the current business climate, human errors are even more likely. With the pandemic increasing the amount of remote work, employees are navigating constant distractions tied to health concerns, increasing family needs and an inordinate amount of stress.
