How To Protect Data Center From Cyber Attack?

To simplify things, many individuals or businesses adopt the cloud through a provider that hosts all their data in a data center. This does not prevent them from sometimes worrying: is not it somewhat risky to entrust to others the management of private information, and therefore valuable? Especially in case of physical or digital attacks?

First and foremost, it's important to understand that cloud provider are only too aware of how sensitive data is, making protection a priority at all levels. In other words, the data centers are real bunkers, much more secure than the IT structures of individuals and businesses. This is also why protection is provided before, during, and after an attack.

Anticipate Cyberattacks

To combat digital threats (such as hacking), servers are most often equipped with antivirus, firewalls, and protected by external elements such as servers dedicated to intrusion detection. Also thought out and verified are solutions against DDOS attacks - by that, understand the "distributed denial of service" attacks against one or more computer systems through a multitude of other diverted computer systems.

Attackers seek in this way to make legitimate access to services such as websites impossible. The often costly and complex defenses available against such attacks in data centers consist of monitoring and alerting tools, illegitimate traffic cleansing servers, and may also involve rerouting traffic to specialized transit operators thanks to the teams present 24 hours a day.

The security of the data center also involves a number of software alleviations and a systematic installation of updates. " A whole series of tests are also carried out in the development division, in order to be sure that the installation does not have any security flaw. For example, for applications in a Microsoft environment, the procedure involves removing the processes and programs, most of which are useless for the service, that will prove potentially exploitable by external attackers. We will reduce and modify the configurations of the applications and the system to make them more secure. Finally, in terms of operating systems, and that's very important, we do the security updates as soon as they pass the regression tests. If it turns out that this is not the case, we apply external countermeasures to mitigate any faults. "

Digital Threat, But Also Physical

Risks are not just digital, however, and the protection of information also involves physical prevention. Theft of data-rich equipment, the breakage of servers ... To fight vandalism, guards are constantly mobilized and video surveillance systems are deployed within the building itself and around it. And to prevent break-ins, the entrance to the building is secured by an access control with different levels of rights that vary by room. Impossible for a visitor to return without being accompanied by an employee of the place, therefore. And if an unwanted happens to break in any way, all the badges can be instantly deactivated while the alarms alert the staff. Blocking the intruder (s) in a room.

In case of fire - criminal or otherwise - the data centers are also equipped with an automatic gas extinguishing system. But that's not all: the structure is also designed to alleviate all the so-called natural risks: heatwave, storm, flood ... This is why the enclosure is often surrounded by lightning conductors and that the air conditioners are chosen to operate that does not matter the outside temperature. And in the event of a power outage, the buildings are equipped with one or even several independent power generators.

Finally, it is not uncommon for a provider to use a second data center. In this case, it is usually close to the first to optimize data synchronization. But it must be connected to a different electricity grid, risk of cutoff obliges. Thus, if one of the centers is affected, the other allows to always keep a certain control of the situation.

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