4 Keys To Successful Cloud Permission Management

October 14, 2022 No Comments

by David, online security advisor for SMEs

Cloud technology is one of the recent inventions in the business world, and all signs show that it’s here to stay. It refers to the practice of renting instead of buying your company’s information technology infrastructure. In simple words, it involves the delivery of computing services such as data storage, networking, and software over the internet.

There are several benefits to moving to the cloud. For instance, it offers a scalable solution for data storage. That’s true since you can store any amount of data on the internet without worrying about a shortage of space. You must also understand that there are no hefty investments in the cloud. Therefore, moving in this direction enables one to minimize costs and save money. You also need to follow suit to grow your firm.

While that’s the case, moving to the cloud may expose your company to some risks. For instance, unauthorized people may access your data, thus interfering with it. However, you can invest in cloud permission management to streamline the process. Doing so lets you control access to your company resources in the cloud environment.

You can adopt various strategies for successful cloud permission management. These include:

1. Enforce The Least Privilege Principle

One of the most effective approaches to promoting your cloud permission management is to enforce the least privilege principle. This involves giving users the minimum rights to the only resources they need in completing specific tasks.

For instance, a marketer should only be allowed to access marketing resources. On the other hand, an accountant should only be accessing financial data or any other related information. Likewise, junior staff shouldn’t be allowed to access information designed to be used by supervisors and managers. That goes a long way in boosting privilege escalation techniques or minimizing attacks that could result from unauthorized access to your company systems.

2. Develop A Strong Password Policy

Creating passwords is another effective strategy to enhance your cloud permission management since it ensures no one can access company data without your permission. However, your passwords must be strong, ensuring no unauthorized user can correctly guess them.

There are many steps you can follow to build strong passwords. First of all, you must ensure your passcodes are of a reasonable length—and the most recommended is between eight and twelve characters.

In addition, it’d be wise to include numerals and alphabets in your passwords. And for the alphabet, it’s advisable to have lower and upper cases. Besides, you must include some nonstandard characters like &, #, @, !, and %, among others.

But you must understand that just creating strong passwords might not be good enough to protect your data in the cloud. You also need to go the extra mile and change them regularly. That helps prevent anyone who saw your passcodes by mistake from accessing your company systems.

While that’s the case, changing passwords regularly can be daunting, especially if you’ve got many of them. And in some other instances, you can forget to change them. For that reason, you can consider automating your password change strategy. All these ensure you create robust cybersecurity and boost your cloud permission management strategy.

3. Leverage The Power Of Two-Factor Authentication

As technology advances, hackers and other unauthorized personnel find new ways to access data in the cloud. Therefore, some security measures like the use of passwords that were effective in the past might not be good enough to protect your business in the modern world.

Indeed, you can’t completely do away with passwords. However, you must go the extra mile and invest in two-factor authentication technology. This is a practice of adding a layer of security to the established strong passwords. The strategy requires users to prove their identity after entering passcodes. As such, no one will access your data in the cloud with passwords only, and they must verify their identity before doing so.

You can provide a variety of authentication factors to enhance your cloud permission management. For instance, you can consider biometrics, which includes facial recognition, fingerprint, and retina scans. Others are security questions, text messages, software tokens, phone calls, and emails.

4. Centralize Identity And Access Management

Lastly, you may want to centralize identity and access management to protect your company data in the cloud. With this strategy, you can gain the visibility you need for proper oversight. That’s true since it ensures privileges are issued per the control policies within your enterprise.

Takeaway

Controlling who accesses your data in the cloud is a must if you want to run a successful firm. It ensures no unauthorized users can access and use your data to their advantage. And the best way to achieve that is by investing in cloud permission management, which you can achieve by implementing the above practices.

Author’s Bio

David is an online security advisor for SMEs. He loves sharing his insights to assist business owners in promoting their cybersecurity strategies. During his free time, David plays golf.