BlogmyQuery – BMQ

Board meetings are an essential process in the company’s life. They are where vital decisions are made, and the company’s direction is decided. These meetings can be financial, technical, or managerial.

Because of this, board meetings can be a potential target for hackers. The valuable data e shared and created during the meetings can be misused in many ways. Leveraging secure cloud storage solutions can help businesses protect that data.

To protect your board meetings, you should start by understanding the importance of secure cloud storage for board data and finding the best strategy to protect it. 

Importance of protecting board meeting data

Source

A board meeting usually revolves around an important topic. Whether that’s something technical about the product’s lifecycle, future marketing campaigns, handling a problem, or devising a financial plan, the meeting is likely to contain valuable information.

While there’s always a human risk, even in physical meetings, that someone will leak information, online board meetings have additional problems. For example, there are chances that someone is using a stolen account to join the meeting or that a compromised note-taking app is being used by the meeting members. 

Data generated and stored during and after the meeting can contain information that could compromise the company. A hacker who steals this data can use it to blackmail the board members or sell it to your competition. 

On the other hand, having your cloud storage hacked and data stolen counts as data leakage. You can also be eligible for fines because data regulations could be broken. 

Cloud storage solutions explained

Source

One of the most practical ways to share files and collaborate with others is through cloud storage solutions. These scalable and flexible solutions allow users to share, store, and access data. 

Cloud storage providers often offer several security features. However, they often aren’t enough, as data leaks can occur due to oversights in other aspects. For example, Google Workspace has an SSL/TLS certificate that encrypts data between a user and a client.

Furthermore, it allows you to implement a multi-factor authentication procedure quickly. However, your company’s computer network could be compromised, which is why it’s important to implement additional data security strategies such as real-time monitoring and strong password policies. 

Strategies for Securing Board Meeting Data

Once you understand why your business should pay attention to board meeting data security, you should move on to implementing effective strategies to achieve it. 

Some methods mentioned on this list require technical personnel, while others can be implemented as policies or with minimal training. 

1. Real-time monitoring and response

One of the best ways to protect your data is through security solutions that provide you with real-time monitoring and protection. This type of software often leverages artificial intelligence and machine learning to detect unusual patterns in user behavior.

Real-time monitoring tools can send alerts whenever there’s suspicious traffic or behavior. When these occur or unauthorized attempts are detected, the system can instantly trigger alerts and apply extra security measures without manual oversight.

Leveraging event-driven architecture allows organizations to automate these critical safeguards, ensuring data stays secure and accessible only to authorized individuals. Many cloud storage services offer these features by default, but combining them with third-party apps is always great. 

2. Encrypted cloud storage

When choosing business cloud storage, always choose providers offering robust security measures. This includes advanced encryption protocols such as the latest AES, which secures data.

It’s also important that your cloud storage provider has features that protect data at rest and in transit. This way, transferring data such as board meeting notes is secure, and the risk of someone reading the data while in transit is minimized.

If the provider uses such encryption methods, your data will be protected even if unauthorized access occurs. This is because data will be unreadable without the decryption key. 

3. End-to-end encryption for file sharing

Source

It’s important that your files are encrypted during sharing and that only you and the recipient can read them. End-to-end encryption ensures this, and many cloud storage options offer this functionality.

However, a problem occurs when the files are shared on risky platforms. For example, an employee uses their social media to share board meeting files rather than a company-approved platform. 

4. Compliance audits

While your business must implement cybersecurity measures to guarantee the safety of board meeting data, compliance regulations need to be considered as well. Depending on the location of your business, you should acknowledge and comply with relevant data processing regulations.

This is GPDR for businesses that operate with customers and clients from Europe. On the other hand, we have regulations such as HIPAA, PIPEDA, and CCPA. Regular compliance audits ensure that the company complies with regulations.

Furthermore, these audits should apply to confirm whether your file-sharing and cloud-storage solutions are compliant with the relevant regulations.

5. Data privacy policies

Hackers and external actors aren’t the only threat to your data. Everyone in your company should understand how to handle data and which information shouldn’t be shared outside the company. 

Data privacy policies outline acceptable use, access limitations, and data handling procedures. They can also include acceptable platforms and software for communication and file sharing. 

Adopting a data privacy policy isn’t a one-time action. Instead, it should be regularly enforced and updated according to the updates in laws, regulatory requirements, and your company’s direction and culture. 

Cloud storage solutions play an essential role in a company’s effectiveness

Your Google Drive or other cloud storage options can lead to significant problems without adequate protection. To solve this, you should implement at least one of the strategies mentioned in this article.

A company’s security methods should be based on informed decisions based on its weak points. It’s best to consult with an external cybersecurity professional or agency. However, this can be costly.
If you can’t afford proper cybersecurity vetting of your business systems, it’s best to implement the fundamental and recommended cybersecurity measures. Furthermore, anti-virus and anti-fraud solutions can help you protect your business for a fee.

Featured Image by Caspar Camille Rubin on Unsplash

The post 5 Strategies for Securing Board Meeting Data with Cloud Storage Solutions appeared first on noupe.

As cloud computing becomes more prevalent in the digital world, new applications emerge. 

However, early adopters usually face threats that haven’t been observed before. This is why it’s important to conduct security audits and perform thorough research before adopting them.

When talking about the cloud, a security assessment is an essential part of ensuring good protection for the applications or platforms that one is hosting. 

Cloud security assessment explained

As the name of this cybersecurity method suggests, cloud security assessment is the process of assessing various parts, virtual and physical, of the cloud.

The intention is to increase cloud security in the long run.

Assessing cloud security requires setting a theoretical foundation and a plan before you start the assessment process. That way, you can guarantee you’ll waste no time or resources.

The assessment is part of a wider mission of ensuring robust protection for the cloud. A couple of essential methods ensure effective assessment. These include:

• Identifying assets
• Scanning for vulnerabilities
• Reviewing policies and configuration

Of course, the benefit of cloud security assessments is that vulnerabilities and flaws are fixed before a cyber attack happens. The costs of data breaches and other cyber threats can lead to fines, impact your reputation, and even cause bankruptcy. 

So, proactively investing in cybersecurity and implementing security assessments can significantly protect your business from monetary and reputational harm. 

Even though ?taking care of cloud security isn’t free, it’s definitely not as costly as the potential fines and profit losses you can experience if your company gets hacked.

Process of Cloud Assessment

Assessing the security of the cloud requires time and a carefully thought-out process. 

While there are a couple of different explanations and breakdowns of this process, we’ll review some common, general steps to follow to help you build your own tailored ?process. 

1. Define the scope and your objectives

Before you go and start making specific adjustments or analyses on the cloud system, you should define your objectives. 

With a firm understanding of what you’re going to assess and why, the process will be much easier. Furthermore, you won’t lose time on unnecessary aspects or departments.

This part can also include gathering information on what type of tools and resources you’re going to need. 

For instance, you might need more personnel. Starting the assessment and realizing that you don’t have anyone trained well enough can lead to setbacks, losses, and smaller progress. 

On the other hand, if you hire a company or an agency before you start the process, it’ll likely be much smoother. 

2. Review your infrastructure

In the context of cloud security, infrastructure includes components such as servers, networks, storage, and other components that are part of the cloud. 

We can also include security control points such as firewalls, intrusion detection/prevention systems (IDPS), and secure protocols. Another option is to set up a company wide network, only accessible via secure VPN connection. Make sure you’re choosing a reliable VPN provider to secure your company network.

Why? This part is important for understanding your attack surface and where potential weak points can be located.

The complexity of the cloud infrastructure will directly impact your ability to conduct the review effectively. 

However, it’s important to know not only what devices are part of the network but also how they’re configured. Cloud misconfigurations can create many vulnerabilities that could be exploited by bad actors.

3. Check existing policies

Assessing cloud security also involves reviewing all the paperwork involved in providing cloud services. One of the most important documents is Service Level Agreements (SLAs), which outline the level of service that the cloud provider is expected to deliver and the remedies or penalties if they fail to meet these commitments.

In addition to reviewing SLAs, security policies, and terms of service, it’s also important to verify the cloud provider’s compliance with relevant security standards and certifications that could apply to one company.

The most important standards include ISO/IEC 27001, ISO/IEC 27002 SOC 2, and PCI DSS. These certifications indicate that the cloud provider follows recognized best practices for security and compliance, and they serve as impeccable guidelines. 

4. Assess your access controls

Access management is an important part of security protocols. All companies should adhere to the “least privilege” rule. This means that no employee should have access levels higher than needed.

Access control is a great way to prevent unauthorized access, but implementing other measures, such as cybersecurity training, can also be beneficial.

For example, it’s clear that the addition of travel nurses brings great benefits to medical centers that are facing staff shortages and urgently require additional support. However, introducing new temporary staff who don’t know the protocols can also bring cybersecurity risks. 

Since these security protocols are so specific, designing onboarding programs that pay special attention to cybersecurity is extremely important. These programs should be specifically aimed at all personnel who won’t be permanent staff members. 

Topics such as two-factor authentication, strong password practices, and how to identify and avoid phishing attempts are essential within these programs. 

5. Evaluate current data security measures 

Data security measures need to be implemented to ensure compliance with data regulations such as GDPR, HIPAA and CCPA. 

Assessment of the cryptographic protocols used in encrypting data and risk management measures in cases of data loss are essential to ensure robust cloud security.

6. Assess the physical security of the cloud

When talking about physical intrusions into a certain company, people imagine this as a stereotypical hacker movie. Of course, no one is going to slide through your ventilation, hack the system, and steal the data.

However, poor physical security can indeed lead to similar problems. For example, individuals who are in charge of cleaning can access rooms where they aren’t allowed to, damaging the servers.

In a case such as a break-in without an alarm system, malicious individuals can either damage your infrastructure or steal valuable items such as computer components. 

Cloud security assessment is crucial for protecting your business operations

Prevention is better than putting out a cybersecurity fire in your cloud environment, and assessing cloud security is essential to stopping these critical risks.

Closing gaps (read: security vulnerabilities) in your network security is impossible unless you know where those security risks are. 

One of the best ways to locate them is to have periodic cloud security risk assessments conducted by your cloud service provider. Think of them as the industry standards for keeping your cloud assets safe.Take the necessary precautions today to prevent data breaches and keep your operations running like a well-oiled machine. You won’t regret investing in your security posture. And neither will your bottom line.

Featured Image by Growtika on Unsplash

The post Navigating Cloud Security Assessment: Ensuring Robust Protection for Business Data and Operation appeared first on noupe.