Think for a moment the steps you take to protect your home valuables?
Do you put them in:
- Your desk drawer under lock and key?
- A lock box hidden behind your towels in a closet?
- The bank vault?
Somehow I suspect you take similar steps to protect your company’s most valuable asset information. Do you:
- Keep everything on your computer, password protected?
- Keep it all on a server, stored in a closet, and maintained by a tech-friendly employee or a P/T IT person?
- Store it in the cloud, maintained by companies that store billions of bits of data and/or have been providing Cloud services for over 16 years.*
Entrepreneurs are by nature used to being in control: we start businesses because we believe/know that we can do ‘it’ better. Turning over control of our company’s data to a 3rd party challenges our basic nature. But, entrepreneurs are visionaries; we start businesses because we have a vision of the future and we embrace any logical technological advances that will help us realize that vision. Entrepreneurs understand the need to take advantage of the cloud, but want their concerns addressed.
So, is my data really safe?
As Jesse Lipson pointed out in a recent Forbes article: “Most cloud computing companies are like experienced airline pilots. They are well trained, have backup systems and contingency plans in case they encounter an issue, and they have a full staff of professionals regularly checking and maintaining their service. Cloud software companies, knowing the implications of a crash on their business’ bottom line, invest significant resources into insuring that such a disaster never occurs.
Cloud computing companies can invest far more resources in data backup and security than your business can.” Compare this, for a moment, to the levels of protection that your part-time IT person provides.
But aren’t data breaches a real threat? Of course, but you might be surprised where the real threats come from. The Privacy Rights Clearinghouse posted a Chronology of Data Breaches that sorts data breaches for Business, Government, Financial Institutions, Education, Healthcare, and Not For Profits and discovered that:
- In 2010-2011 there were 1037 security breaches that were made public included in a total of 42,266,902 records.
- 20M records from 449 breaches came from
- Physical loss: Lost, discarded, or stolen non-electronic records, such as paper documents
- Portable device: Lost, discarded or stolen laptop, PDA, smartphone, portable memory device, CD, hard drive, data tape, etc
- Stationary device: Lost, discarded, or stolen stationary electronic device such as a computer or server not designed for mobility.
- 15M records from 203 breaches came from hacking, spyware, and by an outside party
- 6M records from 190 breaches came from unintended and unknown causes.
Entrepreneurs understand the need to analyze risk/reward in all areas of operations. The Cloud has associated risk, but it is proving to be far more secure than tried and true methods. More importantly, the rewards in terms of cost savings, mobility, and increased productivity will produce tangible gains.
Learn more about Cloud Security.
*InfoStreet, a Cloud app provider, has been providing cloud based apps to businesses of all sizes since 1994. Our system offers 99.99% uptime, daily back ups, and disaster recovery, all of which gives your business the security it needs. Contact us to see how InfoStreet can help your company, whether you have 100 employees or one.
