Misconception one:
Cloud is less secure and can get easily hacked
Security is paramount, so this is a valid concern for clients. Traditionally, companies believed that on-premises meant secure. But over the past few years, chief security officers across the sector have acknowledged that on-premises data centers can be hacked remotely. In fact, it’s manual processes and insider threats that pose a significant risk.
Many organizations have not yet built up the experience to design cloud foundation in a secure fashion. Cloud providers like AWS, Microsoft and Google Cloud invest billions of dollars every year to ensure that their solutions are secure and offer top-notch security features. These providers ensure that data can be encrypted and masked as it gets transferred. Similarly, while computing, the data can be secured via homomorphic encryption. This allows the service providers to perform operations on the data while having it remain.
What ultimately drives trust in security depends on companies gathering the relevant experience in how to implement security features on their own foundation. This will drive the security of their cloud environment that they are working in. Institutions that define the correct policies, adopt a secure DevSecOps operating model and train or hire the right talent can actually achieve safer operations in their cloud environments than on-premises. They ensure a secure configuration by implementing single sign-on (SSO), password policies, multifactor authentication, access permissions and two-step verification procedures for specific processes.
In summary, security is about growing experiences at organizations to set up a cloud environment in a secure way. This involves using features provided by cloud providers, which will build the experience and, therefore, the trust in security around cloud.
Misconception two:
The location of the data is unknown
Controlling data access is critical for protecting people’s data and privacy and maintaining customer trust. Ownership of data, data residency and data sovereignty are driving conversations amongst C-suite executives in both new digital companies and established organizations.
Many conversations about data residency begin because people are concerned as private citizens. But it’s a very different game when the client is a business customer with the ability to choose features in order to build a secure system. Incumbent organizations need more education about how to manage data residency in the cloud and how to develop a new way of thinking about data location within the organization. Leading cloud providers support financial institutions in meeting data residency requirements. Their customers are able to designate the data center region in which their business-critical data and apps are stored. Financial institutions can mandate the physical locations where data can be stored, as well as how and when it can be transferred.
Misconception three:
Cloud is extremely expensive
Cloud expenses are an urban myth. Cloud is the catalyst for a broader business transformation, and its benefits can outweigh any expenditure in technology. But to see savings results, there are two things that organizations need to do.
First, they need to set up a new cost management capability. They are moving from a fixed cost and depreciation model to a more variable cost set with different pricing options from cloud providers. Companies must create the expertise within the organization to understand how consumption drives a certain cost. Additionally, they must determine how the institution can implement and change demand to fit a better profile.
Second, they need to decommission old infrastructure that continues to incur costs. However, this can be challenging for many firms because they end up with a data center that needs to be decommissioned, with some applications that can't be migrated to the cloud.
