An Essential Guide to Cloud Database Security – Key Vendors and Best Practices

Updated on 4 December 2023 10 min Read
An Essential Guide to Cloud Database Security

Cloud security is a collection of security procedures it is design to protect applications, data and infrastructure which is based on cloud. This procedure secures data privacy by safeguarding a person and the device authentication, data access control and data & resource access control. The information security model is created by three key components such as confidentiality, integrity and availability the triad is also known as CIA. The cloud database is considered as the safest storage system due to the major factors such as, the foremost factor is that its servers are generally located in warehouses so most of the workers don’t have access and secondly the files which are gathered on cloud server are encrypted.

In addition, the cloud database security secures a company’s data from distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks, viruses, data breaches, unauthorized user access and hackers. The cloud security is formulated on the basis of legal compliance, data security, identity and access management (IAM), data retention (DR), governance (policies on threat prevention, detection, and mitigation) and business continuity (BC) planning. Also, in cloud, the data is secured through the following procedures including disaster recovery, cloud storage and backups – in case of data loss, malware breach, or any other event the data remains within an organization’s control.  Additionally, the database security is important due to the following factors including damage to brand reputation, compromised intellectual property, fines or penalties for non-compliance, business continuity (or lack thereof), costs of repairing breaches and notifying customers, fines or penalties for non-compliance.

Further, in 2021 the global database security market was valued at US$ 5.99 billion and is anticipated to reach US$ 23.93 billion over forecast period with the CAGR of 18.9%. The global database security market is anticipated to boost the market due to rising demand of database security solutions and the government initiatives towards the protection of data security. Also, growing acceptance of cloud-based services by several businesses is rising the requirement of database security which is predicted to propel the industry demand over assessment period. In addition, the rising volume of data generated by several industry verticals is increasing the demand for data protection which is expected to boost the market share. The rapid rise in the acceptance of database security due to the requirement of effective and efficient security solution for data generated by advanced technologies including Big Data, IoT, cloud based services and to protect data from interlopers are accepted to fuel the global database security market over forecast period.

However, the risk factors of the cloud security database include insider threats, misconfigured APIs, unauthorized resource usage, data breaches and poor visibility. Also, lack of awareness about database security and short budget of the company are other issues which are responsible for hindrance of the global database security market demand.

Related: How Does Cloud Hosting Promote Data Security?

Best practices of the database security are:

Database software security:

Must use the latest version of the database management software, and put in all the patches as earliest as they are issued.

End user account/device security:

Must be informed of that who is using the database and how and when it is being used. Data observing solutions will notify you if data activities are appearing risky. All the user devices connecting with the network housing database must be physically secure (in the hands of the ethical user only) and subject to security controls all the times.

Physical security:

If your database server is in a cloud data center or on-premise, it should be located within a safe, climate-controlled environment. (If the database server is in a cloud data center, the managed cloud provider will take care of this.)

Backup security:

All the backups, images of the database and the copies must be subject to the same security controls as the database itself.

Administrative and network access controls:

Only the minimum number of users should allow to the database, and their permissions must be restricted to the minimum levels required for them to do their jobs. Also, network access should be limited to the minimum level of permissions required.

Auditing:

Record all the logins to operating system and database server, and log all the operations conducted on sensitive data as well. Database security standard audits must be performed regularly.

Application/web server security:

Any of the application or the web server which interrelates with the database can be a channel for attack and should be subject to in progress security testing and leading practice management.

Authorize complete logging capabilities for all databases:

Logs can be address to a central security event management system for observation and incident response linked with suspicious or malicious entrance attempts.

Related: Redundancy and High Availability in the Cloud

Top Cloud Security Companies and Vendors

  • 1. Hytrust
  • 2. Netskope
  • 3. Sophos
  • 4. Cisco Cloud
  • 5. Proofpoint
  • 6. Cipher Cloud
  • 7. Datadog
  • 8. Symantec
  • 9. Fortinet
  • 10. Skyhigh Networks
  • 11. Cipher
  • Hytrust – Revenue [US$108.5 Million]

    HyTrust, is an American company headquartered in Mountain View, California. The company is specialized in security, compliance and monitoring software. It offers encryption and key management for physical and virtual machines. The key components are HyTrust KeyControl – the KeyControl cluster stores keys, supporting an active-active clusterpolicies and arrangement of any number of virtual machines with the HyTrust DataControl Policy Agent installed. In January 2021 the company was acquired by Entrust Corp. The most targated sectors of the company are software and internet software & services. In addition, the company has 16 investors including advance venture partners and nex cubed. The Entrust + HyTrust offers more security for environments including key management, best-in-class encryption and cloud security posture management.

    Netskope – Revenue [US$36.8 Million]

    Netskope is an American company headquartered in Santa Clara, California. The company offers computer security platform. This platform provides cloud-native choices to businesses for defense and data protection against threats in web, cloud infrastructure, and the cloud applications. It helps in accelerating performance, reducing customers risk, and get unrivaled observation into any web, cloud, and private application activity. Also, the netskope security cloud offers real-time data and visibility, as well as threat security when accessing cloud services, websites, and private apps on any device, from anywhere. The company has acquired 3 companies in last 5 years The most targeted sectors of the company are internet software and services with (67%) and information technology with (34%).

    Cisco Cloud – Revenue [US$ 11.93Billion]

    Sophos is a British company headquartered in Abingdon, United Kingdom. It is security hardware and software company, it manufactures products for encryption, communication endpoint, email security, network security, unified threat management and mobile security. The company majorly focused on offering security software to 1 to 5,000 seat companies. Sophos is used for stopping phishing, ransomware, and advanced malware attacks in the tracks. The company has made 17 acquisitions and spent more than US$235 Million. It has invested in several sectors including Cloud Infrastructure, Application Development Tools, Cybersecurity and others.

    Cisco Cloud – Revenue [US$ 11.93Billion]

    Cisco Cloud is basically known as Cisco, it is an American multinational company headquartered in San Jose, California. The company offers cloud solutions which helps in managing and optimizing several applications, clouds and workloads. It gathers security, network, management and analytics and provides an extensive portfolio of integrated solutions, infrastructure, multicloud software, and services to clarify how you protect, connect and consume cloud in a multicloud. The cisco powered cloud services provides an extensive range of options for providing beneficial services. The major types of cloud computing include Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS), Software as a Service (SaaS), Platform as a Service (PaaS). Further, as of October, 2021 the company has acquired across 218 organizations with the spending of more than US$70 billion.

    Proofpoint – Revenue [US$1.050 Billion]

    Proofpoint, is an American security company headquartered in Sunnyvale, California. It offers software as a service and products for data loss prevention, email security, email archiving, and electronic discovery. The company provides most effective solutions to safeguard critical data from advanced e-mail threats. This is an email security system which phishing, block spams and viruses from getting in your inbox. Also, a person can customize settings for the specific mails to block and unblock. The comany has made 16 acquisitions with the spent of US$ 1.00 billion. The company has invested in several sectors including GRC software, cybersecurity, RegTech and others.

    Cipher Cloud – Revenue [US$47.3 Million]

    CipherCloud is an American software company based in San Jose, California, it offers cloud security to businesses. The main purpose of the company is to make Office 365 safe for keeping restricted data (e.g.,PCI, PII, PHI, FERPA) and UCSF box. It scans files outside of secure folder on box and anyplace on Office 365, also encrypts any that finds which contain UCSF PHI. The company has acquired 1 company of its on and the most targeted sector of the company is internet software and services. Also it has 7 investors including Delta Partners Capital Limited and EquityZen. Additionally, the typical users of the company are mid-size businesses and large enterprises.

    Datadog – Revenue [US$ 1.03 Billion]

    Datadog is an American company headquartered in New York City. It is an analysing and monitoring tool for DevOps teams and information technology (IT) which can be used to regulate performance metrics, event monitoring infrastructure and cloud services. It can monitor services including database, servers and tools.  It is a transparency service for providing observing of servers, cloud-scale applications, databases, services and tools through a data analytical platform based on SaaS. Datadog unite with services such as Google Cloud Run to gather data in real time, and accordingly scales with GCP infrastructure by observing resources as soon as they are generated. The company has made 11 acquisitions and 2 investments and has invested in several sectors including IT operations, software testing tools, big data analytics and others.

    Symantec – Revenue [US$ 2.79 Billion]

    Symantec is an American multinational corporation based in Tempe, Arizona and Prague, Czech Republic. The company offers service including cybersecurity software. The products of the company are advanced threat protection, endpoint security, cloud security, network security, information protection, Norton, email security, and cyber security services. The new name of the company is Gen Digital Inc. The company has made most of the acquisitions in the year 2004 with the six companies including Brightmail, ON Technology, @stake, TurnTide, Platform Logic and LIRIC Associates.

    Fortinet – Revenue [US$ 3.34 Billion]

    Fortinet is an American multinational company headquartered in Sunnyvale, California. The company offers cybersecurity solutions, such as antivirus software, physical firewalls, intrusion endpoint security components and prevention systems. The founders of the company are two brothers such as Brothers Ken Xie and Michael Xie. Also, the company offers safeguarding opposed to security threats and clarifies the IT infrastructure. It covers data centers, network security, distributed offices, enterprises, network access and MSSPs. The company has made 15 acquisitions and 4 investments with the spent of over US$ 29 million in the acquisitions. Also, it has invested in several sectors including Enterprise Networking, Cybersecurity, IT Operations and others.

    Related: Theory And Practice Of Cloud Services Networking

    Skyhigh Networks – Revenue [US$16.1 Million]

    Skyhigh Networks is an American corporation headquartered in Campbell, California. The company manages web and unifying data policies secure to create and enforce, provides a single console to offer visibility across all of the infrastructure. It offers cloud security with the four key product features such as, Compliance, Visibility, Threat Protection and Data Security. In 2017 the company is acquired by McAfee.

    Cipher – Revenue [US$6 Million]

    Cipher is an American global cybersecurity company headquartered in Miami, Florida. The company offers huge range of services such as Managed Security Services (MSS), Red Team Services (RTS), Managed Detection and Response (MDR), Governance, Risk and Compliance (GRC), Cybersecurity Technology Integration (CTI) and Cyber Intelligence Services (CIS). The cipher is a mathematical formula outline to uncertain the value and content of data. Also, the ciphers are algorithms, most specifically those are a set of steps for executing a cryptographic function – it may be encryption, hashing, decryption or digital signatures. Currently ciphers are relying on the advanced processing abilities of the computers. Additionally, the company is acquired by 2 companies out of two one acquisition is came from private equity firms. The most targeted sectors of the company include medical products and life sciences.

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