Besides doing an accurate audit, security is probably your biggest worry. When you heard the rumours about the lack of security in cloud-based software to conduct your clients’ SMSF audits, you might have run for the hills. After all, a secure working and storage environment is key to ensure your clients’ trust. Although you’re tempted by how easy it is to work with and store data in the cloud, still-doubts linger. Are my clients’ data secure? Can I trust cloud-based systems to keep their data secure for the years to come?
You need the facts–not half-truths whispered around the water cooler. Cloud-based software is not only as secure as a conventional IT system-it’s more secure. Here’s what you need to know:

Tight Control Doesn’t Mean
High Security

Noted computer science professor David Linthicum wasn’t always a believer in cloud computing’s security. Although well aware of its power and scope for applications, he now is ‘finding that clouds are more secure than traditional systems, generally speaking’. The reason? Contrary to the myth, the truth is that where data is located isn’t as important as accessibility. In other words, in Linthicum’s words, ‘control does not mean security’. In fact, says Linthicum, traditional, on-premises IT systems average more Web application-based attacks than do service providers’ cloud-based systems, by a ratio of 61 to 28.

On-Premises Systems Bigger Targets
for Security Threats

That’s a huge difference. Furthermore, Linthicum points out, the on-premises users had more “brute force attacks” than did the cloud-based users. Food for thought-especially since in our business-our data represents the net wealth of our clients. Like sharks when they smell blood, attackers bite when they smell money. Especially if they know they’ll have more than twice the chance of success when they know the accounting firm still uses an on-premises IT system.
Again, Linthicum stresses, a firm’s preference for an on-premises system rests on a feeling; the false premise that control equals security. In fact, he points out, those companies who design cloud-based platforms “focus more on security and governance” than their old-school brethren.

The Key: A Cloud Solution that
Takes Security Seriously

Instead, what a financial firm should concentrate on is to find a system with cutting-edge security technology and a proper strategy. Reducing the opportunities for an attack to breach the system should be the priority. A software firm that tests, tests, and tests again for vulnerability is the one companies who deal with the life’s savings of its clients should choose.
In the 23 April 2017 edition of Forbes, Louis Columbus writes about Australians’ reluctance to hop on board with cloud solutions for fear of security breaches. Although Australia is the global leader in cloud adoption for public use, the Gulf Coast Council leads in private cloud use. Yet as cloud services increase their security for public, private, and hybrid platforms, more and more companies are coming around to take advantage of cloud services for even their most sensitive data.

Security Is Now the Competitive Edge
for Cloud Providers

The question is, does your company really want to drag its heels on adopting cloud technology when it could take the lead? According to UK tech writer Ben Rossi, it is precisely the lack of confidence many enterprise companies have in the cloud that should spur them to take a second look. Because of this general reluctance of organisations to adopt cloud platforms, cloud services, says Rossi, have begun to ramp up their security to the point that they compete ‘on the security of their service’. Add that factor to the reality-not the myth-that most of the recent data breaches that have happened over the last few years occurred within on-premises IT systems.
Cloud systems, too, have no personal connections-or axes to grind-with the companies they serve. As Rossi points out, ’employees with …malevolent intentions will find it more difficult’ to do damage with cloud-stored data. In most cases, Rossi says, cloud-based services must adhere to tougher standards than do on-premises systems, since cloud services handle the data for much more than just one organisation.

Choose Efficiency and Security
with a World-Class Cloud Provider

The key, then, to take advantage of the lower cost and higher efficiency of the cloud while lessening your risk, is to choose your cloud provider wisely, conclude the authors of Internet security giant McAfee’s ground-breaking report, ‘Building Trust in a Cloudy Sky‘. Those Cloud First organisations who use unified or integrated security solutions have found it easier to adopt cloud services, since the heightened level of security from these security providers ‘reduce their response time to detect, protect, and correct threats to the organisation’s data’.
Cloudoffis takes its clients’ security seriously. Not only does it host its servers on the highly secure Amazon Australia, but it also adheres to the highest industry standards of security implementation. To discover more about how you can boost your productivity while maintaining the highest level of security for your audit files, contact Cloudoffs today.

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