With more than 90% of global companies using cloud computing in some form, protecting cloud-based assets has become a core responsibility for modern IT. But with increasingly complex IT infrastructure, sprawling SaaS application data, and varying deployment needs, safeguarding cloud data is easier said than done.
This guide outlines best practice for securing your cloud data and the critical role cloud data protection plays in supporting an organizations’ business continuity and disaster recovery (BCDR) strategy.
Key takeaways
- Cloud data protection is multi-layered, involving encryption, automated backups, access management, multi-factor authentication (MFA), and data retention policies.
- Relying solely on cloud providers for SaaS data protection leaves critical gaps. IT teams must address these with layered safeguards.
- Major cloud security challenges stem from complexity and visibility issues, including misconfigurations and compliance difficulties across distributed systems.
- Effective cloud-based data protection requires strategic governance and automation to ensure secure access and maintain visibility.
- Backup is an essential failsafe. Automated protection with secure off-site storage makes sure you can restore data quickly and in line with compliance needs.
- Business continuity and disaster recovery (BCDR) solutions are essential safeguards that ensure critical cloud data can be recovered quickly and reliably in the event of loss, attack, or outage.
What is cloud data protection?
Cloud data protection goes beyond simply “securing files in the cloud.” It’s about safeguarding everything tied to cloud usage. That includes sensitive information, applications, collaboration platforms, and even the authentication tools employees rely on to log in to work remotely.
As more companies turn to cloud storage and file-sharing applications, these protections have become a core element of cybersecurity stacks.
With nearly 1 in 4 US workers working remotely, distributed teams rely on the cloud to get work done. That reality keeps sensitive business data flowing through cloud platforms, where it has to be both accessible and secure. Cloud data protection is also essential in non-remote-work scenarios, as IT ecosystems are generally becoming more complex, meaning more devices, data, and users are brought onboard.
The risk of cloud data loss extends beyond exposure alone. Unplanned downtime and the immediate financial impact of a breach, such as lost productivity, service disruption, and recovery costs, can significantly affect operations. Beyond this, the loss or leakage of sensitive data, including financial records and personally identifiable information (PII), can result in regulatory penalties, loss of client trust, and long-term reputational damage.
Technical components of a cloud data protection strategy
Cloud-based data protection depends on a set of technical safeguards that work together to secure critical assets. Core components include:
- Encryption protects data at rest and in transit. Advanced Encryption Standard (AES-256) is standard for stored data, while Transport Layer Security/Secure Sockets Layer (TLS/SSL) secures data in motion.
- Backup architecture provides critical redundancy through automated, scheduled data replication across multiple cloud regions. Hybrid cloud backups add resilience by storing data in multiple environments, ensuring recovery from accidental deletion, cyberattacks, or outages without prolonged downtime.
- Access control systems leverage privileged access management frameworks and role-based access control (RBAC) to ensure users receive only the minimum permissions necessary for their specific roles, aligned with the principle of least privilege (PoLP).
- Data erasure and retention controls support compliance while reducing exposure. IT providers leverage backup tools with automation for safe deletion, long-term storage, and archiving to stay current with evolving storage regulations
- Obfuscation and tokenization protect sensitive data by replacing it with non-sensitive equivalents or transforming it into non-sensitive formats during processing and storage.
Why cloud data protection is essential for MSPs and IT departments
The volume of data that businesses depend on keeps climbing. In fact, more than 60% of organizations manage at least 1 petabyte of data. The more cloud reliance grows, the more important cloud data protection becomes.
In traditional environments, data protection is often centered on physical servers, local storage, and perimeter defenses. In the cloud, those boundaries disappear. Sensitive data flows through SaaS platforms, remote endpoints, and collaboration apps.
And as cloud adoption scales, environments can sprawl quickly, making it difficult to track who has access to what. Without visibility, IT providers risk security blind spots and failed audits.
Compliance adds another layer of urgency. Frameworks like the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) or the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) mandate how cloud data is managed. However, multi-cloud setups make it harder to maintain consistent controls and prove adherence during audits.
Cloud data protection benefits
When IT teams invest in strong cloud data protection, the payoff comes in both security and efficiency. Key benefits include:
- Improved visibility: A well-governed cloud environment helps IT maintain oversight of data flows, access permissions, and potential vulnerabilities across distributed systems.
- Faster threat detection: Modern protection strategies often incorporate behavioral analysis and automation to help detect and respond to unusual activity more quickly than manual methods alone.
- Streamlined compliance: Cloud data protection practices such as consistent access control, data classification, and audit logging help organizations align with regulatory standards and demonstrate accountability during audits.
- Stronger baseline security: Encryption, multi-factor authentication, and automated policy enforcement raise the overall security posture and reduce the risk of human error or misconfiguration.
Challenges with data protection in the cloud
Although cloud adoption brings clear advantages, its distributed structure introduces challenges that IT teams must address:
- Misconfigurations: Multi-cloud environments mean juggling different defaults and settings. Small mistakes, like leaving storage buckets public, can create openings for attackers.
- Visibility issues: The distributed nature of the cloud can make it difficult to see your entire IT infrastructure. Identifying who is accessing data and apps can be challenging, and visibility issues can extend to sensitive company data and company IT assets.
- Expanded attack surfaces: Cloud scalability creates rapidly expanding attack surfaces with increasing assets like virtual machines, serverless functions, and applications, adding potential vulnerabilities that attackers can exploit.
- Complex architectures: Hybrid architectures and multi-cloud setups come with varying policies and security models, which can make it challenging to apply consistent protections across providers.
- Shadow IT: The increased adoption of bring-your-own-device (BYOD) policies have increased the risk of shadow IT, as employees may access cloud services that are not sanctioned by IT. These unauthorized applications fall outside of IT’s oversight, creating app sprawl and increasing the attack surface as the number unmonitored endpoints multiply.
- Human error: Human error is one of the largest causes of data loss. Issues like accidental deletion and data leakage mean that even the best data protection strategies can be undercut without proper training and access management.
To mitigate these challenges, businesses need more than just proactive monitoring. Cloud BCDR solutions offer a critical layer of protection, ensuring data can be recovered and operations restored when issues like misconfigurations, outages, or cyberattacks occur. In addition, concepts like the shared responsibility model make it clear that both the user and the likes of Microsoft 365, Azure, and Google Workspace have some responsibility for data loss.
Cloud data protection best practices
Robust cloud data protection depends on a proactive, policy-driven approach. Key practices include:
- Enforce end-to-end encryption by default. Encrypting data at rest and in transit ensures data remains inaccessible even if a breach occurs. It’s also a necessity to meet a wide range of compliance standards.
- Have an effective cloud security policy and governance in place. Governance involves the policies and procedures organizations use to guide organizational operations within cloud frameworks for consistent protection across all environments.
- Implement least privilege access controls. Utilize a privileged access management (PAM) framework to grant only the necessary permissions to perform the task, and centralize authentication and authorization for end user accounts through a single sign-on (SSO) portal.
- Monitor and audit cloud activity. Comprehensive logging and monitoring are essential for visibility. Services like AWS CloudTrail, Azure Activity Log, and Google Cloud Audit Logs provide critical audit trails for detecting anomalies.
- Build an incident response plan. Create a tailored cloud incident response plan (IRP) that leverages automation and comprehensive logging and provides the continuous training your team needs to ensure rapid response capabilities.
- Classify and label sensitive data. Sensitive data classification helps automate backup and recovery workflows, ensuring that critical or regulated information is prioritized during a BCDR event.
- Protect BYOD endpoints. Implementing BYOD policies can help secure endpoint access to cloud resources and prevent data leakage through procedures like device registration, minimum cloud security requirements, and mobile device management (MDM).
Protect your data with cloud backup solutions from ConnectWise
Native SaaS platforms like Microsoft 365 and Google Workspace are designed to protect their infrastructure, but this is a shared responsibility that may not always cover your data. Human error, sync failures, accidental deletion, and phishing attacks can all result in permanent data loss, and recovery isn’t always easy. The responsibility for long-term protection ultimately falls on IT.
ConnectWise offers a comprehensive suite of cloud backup solutions to help protect your critical business data, supporting BCDR across a variety of cloud-native, on-prem, and hybrid use cases. Our flexible solutions are designed to deliver complete protection for all major data installations including public, private, and hybrid clouds, providing IT with peace of mind in even the most complex IT environments.
Don't let data loss derail your business operations. Watch an on-demand demo to see how BCDR solutions from ConnectWise can help keep your cloud data secure, compliant, and recoverable.
