Ensuring the Sky's Limit with Cloud Computing

A Cloud-Based Approach

Since my first post - Hello (Cyber)World - on the MacH3 in Cyberspace blog, I have had a chance to review a trending topic around the shift of cloud-based service from the traditional campus-based format in the 2021 EDUCAUSE Horizon Report: Information Security Edition. This realization really grabbed my attention not only as a doctoral student interested in securing data in the Cloud but as one traversing through an online platform myself. How many of us may be treating this new system like the VCR players of old, where the proverbial clock forever flashed 12:00? According to Verified Market Research per EDUCAUSE (2021), it's scary when you think about how the education sector has been growing from a $15.3 billion market in 2019 to an estimated $89.5 billion one 2027.

 

Rate of Adoption

The rate of cloud-based services, often coined software as a service (SaaS) or platform as a service (PaaS), adoption has been astounding without even considering the recent pandemic over the last few years. The impact of this leaves behind the computer lab on campus, which could easily be isolated and monitored in favor of the ever-expanding digital boundaries of cyberspace which require monitoring and protection now more than ever (EDUCAUSE, 2021). Those institutions unable to segment off their endpoints and servers will suffer from the larger attack surface for compromise and longer than normal incident detection and response times.

Forces of Impact

As we circle back to the VCR reference I made earlier; it is important to note that impact caused by those who do not care or know how to operate their appliance correctly and safely may miss automatically recording the right show or eating their tapes! Less figuratively speaking, this relates to the threat to an institution's data (a missed program or an eaten tape) with remediating vulnerabilities to maintain security and regulatory compliances utilizing tools for data loss prevention (DLP) and vulnerability management (Singh, 2017). Where breaches caused by human error (the clock blinking 12:00) result in information and financial loss (Khader et al., 2021). The number of cyberattacks in their varied forms occur daily and can silently affect users who are unaware their actions could be compromised and become a threat. This is why security awareness and the appropriate training around a user's role and responsibility will have a high impact on institution migration to the Cloud.

 

References

EDUCAUSE. (2021, February 16). 2021 EDUCAUSE horizon report® | information security edition. https://library.educause.edu/resources/2021/2/2021-educause-horizon-report-information-security-edition

Khader, M., Karam, M., & Fares, H. (2021). Cybersecurity awareness framework for academia.

Information, 12(10), 417. http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/info12100417 

Singh, J. (2017). Study on challenges, opportunities and predictions in cloud computing. International Journal of Modern Education and Computer Science, 9(3), 17-27. https://dx.doi.org/10.5815/ijmecs.2017.03.03