There are many threats that we can suffer when surfing the Internet. Many types of malware that in one way or another can compromise our systems. Now, how do these attacks come about? The methods used by hackers are very varied. In this article we explain why cloud applications are a significant risk and have to protect ourselves from making mistakes that expose our personal information.
Cloud applications can pose a security problem
The way we communicate, the way we manage information, data, share files … Everything has changed a lot in recent times and the cloud has played a fundamental role. We have a large number of cloud-based tools that we can use in our day-to-day lives.
According to a group of security researchers we echo, the majority of malware is now distributed through applications in the cloud. Specifically, it represents 61% of the total. Ultimately, hackers focus on what has the most users and where they can be most successful.
Within the cloud applications that are widely used to distribute malware we can name OneDrive, Amazon S3 or SharePoint. However, it is something that affects many more, so we must always exercise extreme caution.
Keep in mind that the use of the cloud has increased a lot in the last year. It is estimated that it has grown by 20% compared to the previous year. One of the main reasons has undoubtedly been the Covid-19 pandemic. It has brought important changes in the way we connect to the network, the rise of remote work and communications through applications in the cloud.
This same report indicates that 36% of Phishing campaigns target cloud application credentials. This is also a considerable increase over the previous year. Even 13% of Phishing sites have been hosted in the cloud.
How to avoid problems with cloud applications
All this makes it very important to protect ourselves on the network and especially when using applications in the cloud. The objective is to prevent hackers from infecting our systems and compromising the proper functioning of the computers. We are going to give some tips on cloud security.
Something that cannot be missing is to always have security tools installed. There are them for all types of operating systems and devices. We have both free and paid options. A good antivirus, a firewall that protects our network, are essential to be safe when using this type of cloud services.
It is also important to have the equipment updated correctly. Sometimes vulnerabilities emerge that can be exploited by hackers. Thanks to security patches we can solve problems of this type.
But without a doubt something that can not be missing is common sense . Many of these attacks come through mistakes that users make. For example downloading a malicious file from the cloud or opening a link that may contain malware.
