Today, medium to large sized companies use an average of 400 cloud apps. Out of this number, only a small percentage are brought into a company as a sanctioned app by their IT team or trusted partner. If you don’t have specific security to secure your cloud apps, then you are at high risk of data breach.

5 questions you should ask about cloud application security

1. Are you Protected Now that Your Applications and Data are in the Cloud?

You probably don’t know how much of your business is in the cloud. Besides the sanctioned apps that you know about, there are usually tens or hundreds of apps that are not.  Employees are downloading cloud apps and storing data to the cloud every day without informing their IT teams. Threats exist because of the lack of controls on who accesses these apps, the data stored there, and even the security of the data as it is stored in the cloud. For most companies it is a certainty that they don’t actually know what apps are in use by their employees and there are virtually no controls on access or usage.

2. Why will Cloud Application Security become the Next Antivirus?

Protecting your data as it moves to the cloud is the next security frontier. Think about current apps that used to be on your servers and desktops, such as Microsoft Office 365, Google Drive, applications for sales, HR, financial, HR, VOIP, and even custom apps. Every company uses an Antivirus to protect workstations and servers. But as we are now entering a time when our data is distributed between servers, workstations, data centers and now the cloud across possibly 100 different applications, cloud security will become as prevalent within the workforce as the Antivirus – a necessity for all companies. 

3. What are Can we Do to Protect our Data as it Moves to the Cloud?

With so much of our data moving to the cloud, often without our knowledge (shadow data), we had better start thinking about protecting it. Most companies don’t have a cloud application security strategy in place, instead relying on cloud providers to secure these apps for their usage. But that’s just not enough.

4. Did You know that Cloud Application Security is Part of Security Compliance?

Cloud applications and data threats are just now being recognized as a significant and worthy of a focused security control effort.  But make no mistake about it, specific security controls are required to comply with any security regulation as the cloud provides just one more way for data to leak out of your organization. 

5. What are the Solutions for Cloud Application Security?

The solutions for cloud application security and data security are totally different than what you have in place today.

What is needed is a combination of complete visibility, centralized granular control, data security, and increased access control over your cloud applications. Cloud Access Security Brokers (CASBs), for example, enable companies to secure both on-premise and cloud-based applications, combining multiple security approaches.

Check out for our recent article answering the question, “What Do You Need to Protect Your Cloud Apps & Data?”

Want to find out now how uncontrolled your cloud apps are at work? Contact us to get a Cloud Risk Assessment and to discover your current risks from cloud apps and data storage usage in your organization.