If you’ve been incorporating cloud migration into your IT strategies, you’re likely making some decisions about cloud data protection. While traditional, on-site systems allowed you to put a firewall and some authentication barriers around your data, participating in the cloud era means loosening your physical grip on your data.

Headlines surrounding big corporations that have been hit by a breach often focus on the consumer side of the problem, inclulding the credit card numbers and personal information gathered by a hacker. While this is certainly enough to deliver a crushing blow to any company, it’s only part of the story. You also have data assets, such as inventory pricing and other proprietary information, that you need to protect.

With so much data moving in and out of the cloud, it’s important to have a firm grasp on how much risk your exposure involves. Not only does your cloud provider have access to your data, but the increasing number of endpoints and mobile technology also means that it’s increasingly difficult to secure every area of vulnerability.

Cloud data protection is available, and a Software as a Service (SaaS) solution is a good option for enterprises just starting out with cloud migration. It also works well for companies that don’t have in-house staff that can handle the intricacies of cloud data security. Here’s what to look for in a provider:

The ability to identify data: Once you migrate to the cloud, it becomes harder to identify your sources of data and where they are residing in cloud storage. Your cloud data protection solution should be able to identify, classify and determine the type of security measures any given data set requires. It should also be able to determine if data is sensitive or regulated, and apply the necessary protocols.

Monitoring with machine learning: Your cloud data protection software should be able to establish a baseline for normal user behavior and then routinely check for any anomaly. This is particularly important for those users that have a high level of access to your data.

Adaptability: Particularly if you’re working on a broader digital transformation plan, you need a solution that will scale with your growth and accommodate a hybrid environment.

Proactively address security prevention and threats: Your solution should block and quarantine threats, as well as provide detailed threat analytics. It should be able to do what no staff member could possibly do — discover anomalies within huge data volumes and report suspicious activity.

As you increasingly move data to the cloud, you need to feel as if you have a proactive guard keeping watch over your data. To learn more about cloud data protection solutions, contact us at eXemplify. We can help you leverage the best technology to protect your data assets.