Whether from home or in the office, the working world has moved increasingly towards using cloud-based services since 2020. When the COVID-19 pandemic triggered the highest ever demand for remote working, organisations were further necessitated to move their data and applications from on-premises environments to cloud-based infrastructure.

As a result of this move, Check Point’s 2022 Cloud Security Report found that over 98% of organisations now use some form of cloud-based infrastructure to host or store critical applications and data. This increased rise in reliance on cloud infrastructure has resulted in a commensurate rise in attacks on the cloud. And the need for security and protection for cloud infrastructure is obviously higher than ever. The likely, or at least primary, routes of attack are now via the cloud – meaning there is just as much of a need for cloud security as security for devices such as servers and computers.

In the last 18 months, 79% of companies have experienced at least one cloud data breach

In January 2023, Expert Insights issued a report with incredibly high statistics – in the last 18 months, 79% of companies have experienced at least one cloud data breach and 43% have reported ten or more breaches in the same time period! To protect your organisation and infrastructure from these ongoing and increasing threats, we recommend that you implement security at both cloud and account level. Cloud security protects accounts and data from attacks in the cloud, which helps reduce attacks across devices, as accounts can be used on multiple machines.

Cloud-based security is a further benefit as it is a proactive measure – protecting users and devices before attacks even reach them, including ongoing monitoring and management of attacks. This works in combination with the more traditional line of defence, which is security on devices. Device security is more reactive – it aims to protect a device once an attack has reached it, e.g. if a malicious email has been opened or malicious software downloaded.

For example, we offer Cloud Office Security (COS) – a security platform designed to protect Microsoft 365 services at source (including Outlook, Teams, SharePoint, and OneDrive) against malware, spam, and phishing attacks. It is a security layer installed within your Microsoft 365 tenant in the cloud, for automatic and ongoing protection.

If you have concerns about your organisation’s security, please get in touch with us to discuss the best way to protect your accounts, data, users and devices from attacks.