Businesses in almost all fields are increasingly reliant upon the secure storage, access, and analysis of huge quantities of data. Even smaller businesses are using data analytics as a key part of their COVID-19 survival and growth strategies. The reasoning behind this shift is simple. Reliance upon data follows the increased creation and storage of data as human social and financial interactions have moved into the digital realm.
Whether a business’s data is stored on-site or remotely via a cloud service, data center security should be a top priority. Here are some aspects of data center security that need to be considered by business leaders today.
Physical Security
Data center security is physical, as well as digital. Data, after all, needs to be stored on physical devices. Although data centers may seem extremely abstract to people utilizing cloud computing solutions, this does not mean that there are no physical entities somewhere in the world. Here are the most important physical aspects of data center security.
Building Access And Authentication
Data centers need to be set up to stop unauthorized access. An unauthorized person or persons may be able to disconnect, tamper with, or completely destroy a server. There are plenty of reasons why people would try this – especially if a business is storing data that is highly sensitive. A defense in depth strategy is usually recommended by cyber security experts. Security cameras, biometric authentication, human security guards, and multiple strong lockable doors should keep most intruders at bay.
Secure Location
The location of a data center is also a key aspect of security. The building housing a data center should not be in a location susceptible to flooding or fire, it should be close to emergency services bases, and it should be as nondescript as possible.
Digital Security
The vast majority of attacks on data centers are carried out digitally. Here are some guidelines for preventing these potentially devastating intrusions.
Authentication
Gaining digital access to data stored on a server should be reliant upon more than one kind of authentication. Multi-factor authentication is recommended by cyber security experts. Clients or colleagues that want to access data should have to provide biometric, password, and phone confirmation data. A password layer alone is not sufficient for keeping out determined hackers.
In-Transit Encryption
When a data center is remote from the main building your business is based in, data sent to and from the center needs to travel. During transit, data is incredibly vulnerable to interception. End-to-end encryption is a necessary step to take if you want to prevent sensitive information from being siphoned surreptitiously whilst in transit.
Encryption is the practice of transforming data into unreadable code – being made readable again by a decryption key that is kept secure within a network. Encryption is not completely airtight. Some hackers have developed ingenious ways of decrypting information. It is, however, enough to put off all but the most sophisticated cybercriminals.