5 On-Premise Data Security Challenges
Harsh Sahu
CTO
June 2024 | 7 mins
Gartner says an 8% growth of worldwide IT spending, of which Data Center Systems grasp a 10% growth prediction in the year 2024. This is inspite of the growing on-premise security risks - 46% of on-premises databases worldwide contains known vulnerabilities.
Such predictions in favour of on-premise data storage comes in the age where cloud-based organizations could grasp over and above $3 trillion in value, mainly due to the customization abilities of on-premise systems. On-premise systems can be tailored and configured to individual organization’s needs. But security remediations are not customizable enough to secure on-premise servers.
In March 2021, Microsoft reported it was the victim of a state-sponsored cyberattack from the Chinese group Hafnium. The threat actors used zero-day attack techniques. This enabled them to extract data from hundreds of thousands of on-premise servers running Microsoft’s Exchange software.
Cloud-based systems are much safer for your sensitive data, if the cloud configurations are set right. This means that only dumping data to cloud can’t save organizations from data breaches, they have to take necessary posture management and risks assessments to understand the breach possibilities. Cloud platforms though a vast chain of uncertainty, if used properly can save millions in IT spending of organizations, who rely on on-premise servers to secure data.
This blog highlights 5 reasons why on-premise servers are outdated for data security and why there is a need for faster adoption of cloud storage systems to secure your most critical data such as PII, PCI, and PHI of customers and employees alike.
On-premise are prime targets of cybercriminals for extortion of data and sale on the dark web. They require regular updates and security patches, which is challenging for Security Operations (SecOps) teams amidst today’s reported 4 million shortage of cybersecurity staff.
Read on to know 5 data security risks associated with on-premise servers:
Many organizations delay infrastructure refreshes, which leaves them vulnerable to security breaches. According to a Forrester survey, 70% of companies admitted to delaying their infrastructure updates multiple times over the past five years. This procrastination increases the risk of data breaches and violation of regulation laws such as GDPR which states data security should be privacy by design. Any on-prem vulnerabilities negates this provision, making you liable for hefty fines and penalties for non-compliance.
Maintaining compliance with evolving regulatory requirements is a significant challenge for on-premises environments. Imperva research indicate that more than half (56%) of the Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures (CVEs) found in on-prem servers were ranked as ‘High’ or ‘Critical’ severity, aligned with guidelines from the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST). This indicates that many organizations are not prioritizing the security of their data and neglecting routine patching exercises, keeping compliance as a secondary matter for their cybersecurity measures.
On-premises servers are prone to significant security breaches and downtime. For instance, the average cost of a data breach in 2023 was $4.45 million, with breaches often causing extended downtime and operational disruptions. Ensuring robust on-premises security measures is critical but often costly and resource-intensive. If your local server is not working properly, your productivity will also be greatly hampered.
Delays in patching also shows disadvantages of on premise data center, and one of the reason for data breaches to occur. This is highlighted in the The State of Vulnerability Management in the Cloud and On-premises conducted by Ponemon Institute.
Managing on-premises servers requires substantial resources, including skilled personnel and significant financial investment. The complexity of securing on-premises data centers necessitates continuous monitoring, updating, and scaling, which can be a drain on organizational resources.
Synergy research group also suggests the trend of on-premise going down in the next few years: "Looking ahead to 2027, hyperscale operators (like GCP, AWS, Azure ) will account for over half of all capacity, while on-premises capacity will drop to under 30 percent."
On-premises environments face a growing number of cyber threats, including attacks on physical devices and systems. According to this study, it can take almost a month (28 days) to patch once a critical or high-risk vulnerability is detected on-premises and it takes much lesser time (19 days) if it is detected in the cloud. The expanding cyberattack surface makes it increasingly difficult to defend against sophisticated threats. Organizations must invest heavily in security protocols and technologies to mitigate these risks effectively.
On the one hand, vulnerabilities in on-premises systems can be assigned a Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures (CVE) categorization, and a process of patches and updates will follow. On the other hand, such a clearly indexed catalog of flaws increases the discoverability and exploitability of these vulnerabilities for cybercriminals.
Organizations are increasingly following a hybrid strategy, combining the pros of on-prem servers and cloud platforms. This gives an added advantage to large enteprises who prefers customization in access controls. But, on-premise servers cannot control access based on context or real-time attributes such as time and location. This can be easily done with attribute based access control in cloud based data security platforms like OptIQ. And the case of SMBs and startups is simple — they follow a cloud first strategy, which makes their data more secure than their counterparts.
Schedule a one-to-one demo of OptIQ Data Security Platform to get expert guidance on securing your sensitive data in the cloud.
