I was on a visit to a client recently and while we were discussing data backups I casually mentioned 'The Cloud'. She actually gasped and stopped in her tracks. And then said this...
I'm scared of the cloud. It's not secure and everyone can steal your photos
It's not the first time I've heard it either. I know several people who are scared of cloud computing, and all of them admit they don't actually know anything about it. So what is the cloud and how secure is it?
Cloud computing is not a new idea. It has actually been around since the 60s, but it is only in the last few years that the idea has been commercialised to the point that it's become part of our everyday lives. Chances are you already use cloud storage in one form or another. Web-based email accounts (Gmail, Hotmail etc), Dropbox, Pinterest, Google Drive, OneDrive & iCloud are all different examples of cloud storage solutions.
'The Cloud' simply refers to any solution where data is stored in a logical structure across multiple servers which are owned and managed by a hosting company. One cloud solution may be insecure and vulnerable, but that does not mean they all are.
When it comes to backing up data, we all know we should back up regularly, and we've all lost data at some point. It's commonly lost by having to reboot a computer and having unsaved work, or a device breaking before we've had a chance to get our photos and documents from it, but there's more to backing up data than just having to redo some work or losing some photos. And there's a lot more to the cloud than just storage.
2014 saw mobile internet use overtake traditional desktop use for the first time as more and more people use tablets and smartphones. Cloud based workloads also overtook traditional in-house workloads for the first time.
The convenience of being able to start working on your desktop and then continue that work on a tablet in front of the television or on your smartphone while you're sat on the train is down to cloud computing. Automatically uploading your smartphone photos when you connect to your home WiFi is another convenience of the cloud. It's only when it gets more formal and work related storage and backups are thought of that people start to balk at the idea. Or do they?
This varies from provider to provider, but nothing on the internet is 100% safe. Some large companies have hit the news for all the wrong reasons (Ahem Apple) regarding data security and breaches. As we can see from the following statistics data breaches are increasing all the time and not all data loss is down to systems or technology failures.
It took roughly four hours to produce this page. In that time 21,942 attacks were initiated from the top 10 origin nations: China, United States, Bulgaria, Thailand, Germany, Turkey, Russia, Military/Governments, Sri Lanka and Japan
Source: www.map.ipviking.com