According to a 2014 study, 69 percent of businesses had at least an application or a part of their infrastructure on the cloud.

With a significant number of business depending on the cloud, it’s security on public cloud be given a serious thought!

Features like flexibility, scalability, immediacy and primary cost-effectiveness move businesses to harness the capabilities of the cloud to their benefit.

However, it is noteworthy that despite the growing dependency on the cloud, existing and growing concern makes business owners cringe over the cloud’s security.

As per a 2014 study, 61 percent of the companies found cloud security as a managerial-level concern.

Security is one of the key obstacles that stand in the path of cloud adoption!

So, now the question arises. How do we deal with the supposed security concerns of the cloud?

1) Choice of Apps
In most cases, cloud-adoption starts with app usage, especially those most important to day-to-day business operations. Therefore, it is always essential to assess if the public cloud is the right solution for your business needs or if every app that you use as part of your business does really need the cloud. Once this is done, you’ll have to look for a public cloud computing service provider who has got your security plan all sorted out. Mandate this in your Service Level Agreement too and reinforce this more frequently if required.

2. Additional Security:  It always beneficial if business owners take up security as their own responsibility, this can be done in the following ways:
• The business owner needs to come up with security policies on cloud services Dos & Don’ts
• Assessment of vendor encryption capabilities
• Encrypting data as an individual step before uploading it to the cloud is important
• A mutual collaboration over security ensures a safer environment for healthy business operations

3) Engaging the Right Third-Party:
Make it a point to cross-check with what your cloud service provider said and what they’re provided. Can’t do it by yourself? Engage a third-party audit service. Third-party auditing entities can audit and assess application of security standards, processes and procedures at a cloud provider and check to see if that’s what they told the client. Moreover, an extended audit over a period of time can assure the business owner of his safe transition to the cloud.

4) Embed Authentication:
Not all, but most of them do provide authentication services for public cloud instances. But in case you are still doubtful, nothing like getting your own tools for adding that extra layer of authentication to your cloud security. But watch out for these layers of security getting to interfere with application performance and later on brand reputation.

5) Scrutinize Singing in and Monitoring: 
Studying your cloud service provider’s monitoring and logging for physical cloud instances is also an important measure. Compare with other CSP’s logging and monitoring before you sign the dotted line of the Service Level Agreement. Doing this may bring to light some discrepancies (if any).

6) Bracing Up Against Disaster:
One of the important things you’d want to check is if your CSP is ready and available for an emergency. Yes, when you experience a security breach or a downtime, you will definitely want to have your provider address the situation immediately. Conduct a thorough study and see if your service provider has it all to take care of your security concerns.

7) Closing Books On a Peaceful note: 
It’s time to close the contract, you’re on the hunt for a new vendor maybe. In that case, you have to ensure that your data will be secured and given back to you unhampered. You may want to use it internally or forward it to the next cloud provider. How do you do that? Have it written in your SLA; make it mandatory for the current vendor to return all the data that you reserved with them.

Conclusion:
Your cloud journey’s safety is not only your provider’s responsibility, it is a mutual task that the both of you have to share. While security can pose a threat to business over the cloud, measured steps will help reduce the risk of a Cloud breach. Weigh out all the options!