What are the main security risks of the cloud?

The cloud is appealing for its simplicity, but it exposes your data and your equipment to real risks. At Easy Multi Display, we made the opposite choice: software that runs locally, without depending on a remote server. Here is why, and what the main dangers of cloud computing are.

A bad experience at the origin of our software

In 2007, a French real estate agency used a cloud-hosted digital signage service to run its six shop-window screens. The day the provider closed its doors, all the screens became unusable overnight. It was impossible to recover the content, impossible to keep broadcasting.

It was this misadventure that pushed us to develop our very first software, “Vitrine Multimedia”, the ancestor of Easy Multi Display. The lesson was clear: when your display depends entirely on an outside service, you lose control.

The 5 main security flaws of the cloud

Five vulnerabilities come up most often when hosting your data in the cloud:

• The security flaws present on the logical layers of the data center, as well as those caused by human error.
• Identity and access management that is too weak, leaving the door open to intrusions.
• Poorly secured application programming interfaces (APIs) during the integration of cloud services.
• The vulnerabilities of the operating systems that run the remote servers.
• Attacks through the hijacking of user accounts.

7 additional risks to be aware of

Beyond these five points, seven other threats deserve your attention:

• Insider threats linked to the staff who manage the data center itself.
• Advanced persistent attacks, where an intruder settles quietly on the network to act over the long term.
• Data loss, whether due to an attack, physical damage, a natural disaster or the negligence of the provider.
• A poorly prepared cloud adoption strategy, without a genuine security plan.
• The exploitation of the anonymity offered by the cloud to carry out large-scale attacks.
• Denial-of-service attacks, which saturate the data center’s resources until it becomes inaccessible.
• The flaws linked to the heterogeneity of the technologies interwoven in the cloud’s internal architecture.

Risks that are often invisible

The most worrying part is that these attacks usually go unnoticed. 8 times out of 10, the hacked company is unaware that it has been. A CSI-type security audit, for example, revealed the presence of 2,500 unauthorized SaaS applications within an organization that estimated the number at only about a hundred. So many potential entry points, invisible to the teams in place.

Our choice: “local first”

Faced with these risks, Easy Multi Display runs locally, without the cloud. Your content, your screens and your data stay on your machines, inside your network. A single Internet connection is needed at the start, to activate your license; after that, everything works offline.

This approach is particularly well suited to command rooms, fire and rescue services (SDIS) and sensitive environments, where isolating the workstations from the Internet is preferred to guarantee security and continuity of service. No provider that can close down, no data that goes to a third party, no dependence on a connection.

Support

If you have any questions, check the FAQ, download the user guide or contact customer service at support@easymultidisplay.com.