|
Internet based services have become an essential resource for most businesses. As reliable as they are, they are not without their issues.
It comes as no surprise that at a time when business users are increasingly depending on cloud services to enable remote and home-based work, that many of them are starting to feel the strain. Often touted as begin secure, reliable and easy to configure, the cloud services that many businesses have come to depend on have begun to show their metaphoric cracks.
Cloud-based computing has become as common as smartphones in our culture of technology. More and more businesses as well as individuals choose to use cloud services to store their sensitive data. Their ease of use and the fact that they eliminate the need to manage storage devices like hardware drives and servers make them a compelling choice.
Despite the obvious advantages, a reliance on cloud service providers does carry a fair share of risk. In as much as the "cloud" euphemism conjures images of a safe repository for data, above and beyond the reach of prying eyes, this is simply not the case. Uploading "to the cloud" really means uploading to "someone else's hard drive." As such, it's subject to the same failures and security threats as any other. For all their combined efforts, one would be hard pressed to find a cloud provider that hasn't suffered some form of data breach or system failure. In fact, hardly a month goes by without news of another "cyber-attack" or "data breach" compromising the data that users hold so dear.
System failures are another issue entirely. Although not generally a threat to the security of users' data, they do result in very real costs being incurred by those that rely on those services. Never have cloud-based services been put to the test quite as they have during the recent pandemic shutdowns. Millions of office employees throughout the world found themselves depending upon internet based services to keep them connected to their offices and colleagues. For the most part they performed quite well, but there were some issues.
Zoom
Zoom is a video conferencing solution that grew to new heights of popularity during the pandemic. Everyone from office workers to schools and individuals scheduling online yoga classes turned to this platform.
In late August, Zoom experienced major outages that affected users across the globe.
Ahmed, Saeed. "It's not just you. Zoom is down across the US" CNN, https://www.cnn.com/2020/08/24/us/zoom-outage-worldwide-trnd/index.html. Accessed 8 September, 2020.
Whittaker, Zack. "Zoom meetings hit by outage" techcrunch.com, https://techcrunch.com/2020/08/24/zoom-meetings-hit-by-outage. Accessed 8 September, 2020.
Neate, Rupert. "Zoom apologises after partial global outage" theguardian.com, https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2020/aug/24/zoom-apologises-after-being-hit-by-partial-global-outage. Accessed 8 September, 2020.
Google
Google services such as Gmail, Google Drive and others are staples for individuals and business users alike. Google's Drive service also provides a repository for users' photos and videos that are saved to the cloud.
Google reported several outages in August affecting everything from Gmail and Google Drive, to Google Docs, Google Meet and even the all-important Google Search.
Page, Carly. "Gmail Down: Google Services Suffer Global Outage" forbes.com, https://www.forbes.com/sites/carlypage/2020/08/20/gmail-down-google-services-suffer-global-outage. Accessed 8 September, 2020.
Singh, Manish. "Gmail, Google Drive hit by outage" techcrunch.com, https://techcrunch.com/2020/08/19/gmail-google-drive-down-users-say. Accessed 8 September, 2020.
Cogley, Michael; Burton, Lucy; Foy, Simon. "Home workers face chaos as Google services crash worldwide" The Telegraph, https://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/2020/08/20/gmail-google-services-crash-frustrated-users-worldwide. Accessed 8 September, 2020.
Microsoft
Not to be left out, technology titan Microsoft experienced their own myriad of outages in recent months. Service interruptions affecting their Azure cloud platform resulted in countless users throughout the world finding themselves unable to access their data.
The Azure platform is the foundation for many of Microsoft's most popular services such as 'Office 365'. In addition, the platform is used by developers throughout the world as storage platform for their applications and services as well.
Foley, Mary Jo. "Microsoft has a plan to try to improve Azure outage assistance" ZDNet, https://www.zdnet.com/article/microsoft-has-a-plan-to-try-to-improve-azure-outage-assistance. Accessed 8 September, 2020.
Foley, Mary Jo. "Microsoft's March 3 Azure East US outage: What went wrong (or right)?" ZDNet, https://www.zdnet.com/article/microsofts-march-3-azure-east-us-outage-what-went-wrong-or-right. Accessed 8 September, 2020.
Cooper, Kathy. "Office 365 Outage: Admins Unable to Onboard New Users to Exchange Online" Office 365 Reports, https://o365reports.com/2020/04/09/office-365-outage-admins-unable-to-onboard-new-users. Accessed 8 September, 2020.
Basford, Sarah Canales. "Microsoft Office 365 Goes Down in Australia As It Struggles With Mondays Too" Gizmodo, https://www.gizmodo.com.au/2020/06/microsoft-365-crashes-in-australia-making-your-monday-even-tougher. Accessed 8 September, 2020.
Cloud services, cloud computing, virtual servers and the ever-growing list of names given to internet based services have clearly become a reality of everyday life for most users. They offer a trove of conveniences that countless many have come to depend on. As with all services, however, they are subject to occasional failures. For the most part, these issues are limited to being separated from data or services for a short period of time, but just as many have resulted in data being compromised to made accessible to outside parties.
It's for this reason that users should continue to exercise caution and diligence when entrusting their critical or confidential data to outside service providers. There is never a time when local backup copies should be considered obsolete. Limit online data stores to information that needs to accessed on an ongoing basis. By routinely purging older information and storing in local copies, companies can effectively limit their exposure in the event of data breaches.
With the emergence of so many powerful internet-based services in recent years, it now becomes incumbent on all of us to determine the most effective and secure means by which to utilize them.
|
