A wide range of privacy regulations govern how organizations collect, store and use personally identifiable information (PII). In general, companies need to ensure data confidentiality, avoid data breaches and leaks, and make sure data is not destroyed or altered in unauthorized ways. The consequences of lost or leaked PII data are significant. Of course, the individuals involved can be harmed from resulting identity theft and associated costs.

Research into recent ransomware submissions revealed that more than a tenth of crypto-malware infections now involve some element of data theft. In the second quarter of 2020, ID Ransomware received 100,001 submissions of crypto-malware pertaining to attacks that had targeted organizations and government entities. Of those attacks, 11,642 involved the theft of victim data by their perpetrators. That’s over 11% of the attacks for that six-month period.

Businesses of all sizes are moving to the cloud to take advantage of the greater data availability, significant cost savings and data redundancy that cloud computing provides compared to a traditional data center-based physical infrastructure. Moving to the cloud can also reduce shadow IT and get data stores out from storage closets and underneath desks so they can be governed and protected in compliance with regulations and best practices.