Document Security: Getting Infrastructure and Network Security Right
Posted by Thibault Mortier ● 10/18/18 7:30 AM

Document Security: Getting Infrastructure and Network Security Right

Document security has quickly become a major focus for businesses around the world. Protecting the sensitive information found in your organization’s files and documents is a must. Those who don’t often pay the price. In honor of Cyber Security Awareness month, we’re going to take a closer look at what document security looks like in 2018 and show you how you can keep your company (and its sensitive documents) safe.

Staying secure doesn’t have to mean creating your own billion dollar security solution. All it takes is a little effort and the right security practices.

So, let’s get to it.

Infrastructure and Network Security

We’re going start with physical infrastructure and network security. Ensuring that your physical infrastructure and network is secure will give you a solid foundation to build your security practices on top of.

Physical security is still important

With all the news about sophisticated cyber attacks, it’s easy to forget about the importance of physical security. The thing is, without secure data centers, you can never guarantee the safety of your files. Even the most secure firewall in the world won’t save you from someone forgetting to lock the door to the server room.

It’s important not to overlook your physical infrastructure for a number of reasons. On top of malicious break-ins, small mistakes in the real world can have a big impact on your IT systems. Case and point, British Airways had to cancel more than 400 flights when an engineer accidentally disconnected a power supply at a data center.

There are two major reasons that companies find themselves vulnerable: the wrong people have access to data centers and risk assessments are overlooked.

Giving the wrong people access to a data center is an obvious issue. However, spotting the “wrong” people isn’t as easy as it sounds. Often the “wrong” people can seem like the “right” people. While they can appear qualified, some employees have outdated skills or don’t have enough experience to handle their responsibilities. The impact of this can be huge. Even a small security error can have a catastrophic result.

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Risk assessments are another area that many companies fall short on. While your state-of-the-art data center may be secure now, will it still be protected next year? Without regular risk assessments and automated risk alerts, you’ll never know for sure. Intrusion techniques are constantly evolving. You can’t afford to be complacent. Monitoring employees and collecting information about attempted breaches is essential to updating security measures so you can keep pace with the new threats.

Then there’s network security

After you’ve secured your physical data center, the next step is to protect your network. The problem for many companies is that much of their network security is done in-house. The unfortunate reality is that, unless you’re a large company, your in-house security teams will inevitably fall behind in the security arms race.

Network security breaches have made headlines this year and the costs associated with them are staggering. Clearly, corporate IT security hasn’t been able to keep pace with increasingly sophisticated (and, sometimes, government-sponsored) hackers.

There are a lot of network vulnerabilities out there. Having a firewall is not enough to ensure that your data is secure. Without regular maintenance, hackers can breakthrough company-built firewalls and other off-the-shelf security software. However, constantly testing, maintaining, and upgrading your security software is often too time-consuming for many businesses.

The public cloud to the rescue

When it comes to network security, the days of going at it alone are over. Unlike most organizations, public cloud companies have the resources and expertise to stay ahead of the latest hacking tactics. For example, Google employs more than 550 full-time security and privacy professionals. Some of those employees include the world’s top experts in data, application, and network security.

You’ll find the same situation when it comes to physical security as well. Due to the financial and human costs of maintaining an on-premise system or data center, the only organizations, in many cases, with the resources to properly manage and secure their data centers are the public cloud companies.

Document Security PDF: Nine Reasons Why Everything Should be in the Public Cloud

Cloud companies secure your data and limit document access with layered security systems. Not only are their employees specially trained but public cloud data centers use security cameras, custom electronic access cards, physical access barriers, biometrics, and laser beam intrusion detection to make sure that only authorized people have access to the servers. They also proactively identify any potential threats and quickly resolve any security concerns.

The public cloud can do a great job in helping you to secure your network and physical infrastructure. However, the conversation about document security doesn’t end here. In fact, we’re just getting started. Make sure that you check back next week for our next post on user training and authentication (or skip ahead to part three or part four). If you're impatient, you can always download our full document security white paper instead.


AODocs Cloud Content Services Platform

AODocs is a content services platform designed to modernize the way businesses work - offering a low code environment to build content-rich applications, powerful automation and workflows, and business applications with comprehensive security and compliance capabilities. Discover how AODocs helps IT departments safe-guard company documents and facilitate collaboration in a flexible, easy-to-audit environment.

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For more on document security in the cloud, check out our eBook, “Document Security: 9 Reasons Why Everything Should Be In The Public Cloud” which can be downloaded for free here:

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Tags: Security