Introduction
At Bacancy, I lead a team that supports businesses as they move to the cloud, manage their data, and grow their digital presence. Whether we're working with startups or established enterprises, everyone has this concern:
How do we keep our data safe?
It is a fair question. The flexibility of the cloud brings many opportunities, but it also introduces new responsibilities. If your data is exposed or compromised, the damage is real: reputation loss, financial penalties, and operational setbacks.
From what I’ve seen, protecting cloud data does not have to be complicated. You do not need a ton of tools or a big team of security experts. What you need is a focused approach and a commitment to doing the basics right. Here are the cloud data security best practices I recommend, based on what we have helped our clients implement and refine over the years.
Top 10 Cloud Data Security Best Practices
Here is a detailed breakdown of the ten key cloud data security best practices we follow at Bacancy to help businesses protect their data and stay secure in the cloud.
1. Encrypt Your Data All the Time
Encryption is one of the most important layers of cloud data security. It ensures that even if someone gains unauthorized access to your systems, the data remains unreadable without the correct decryption key. By encrypting both stored data and data in motion, organizations can significantly reduce the risk of exposure.
At Bacancy, we enable encryption by default. We use cloud-native services to encrypt storage buckets, file systems, and databases. We also secure all network communication using TLS or SSL. Depending on the client’s needs, we choose either provider-managed keys or customer-managed keys stored in key vaults. We rotate those keys on a set schedule to reduce risk even further.
2. Use Multi-Factor Authentication for Every Login
The easiest way for attackers to break in is through weak or compromised credentials. Multi-factor authentication (MFA) adds a second step, forcing users to confirm their identity with a mobile device or code, that makes it much harder for attackers to break in.
Implementing MFA is easy, and the results are massive. I have closely worked with teams that rolled out MFA across all of their administrative and user accounts in a single afternoon. After that, phishing attacks and password stuffing attempts had no impact.
We integrate MFA at the identity provider level, whether that’s a cloud‑native service or a third‑party system, so your users experience one smooth login flow.
3. Apply Strict Access Controls
When every user gets more access than they require, security issues are bound to happen. These over-privileged permissions can lead to inside threats, accidental leaks, or unexpected misuse.
We often see companies where every employee has admin-level access to sensitive data. That’s a big risk. We help clients clean up permissions and make sure each user role is mapped to the work they actually do. When someone changes roles or leaves the company, their access gets updated or removed right away.
4. Test Your Backups Regularly
Keeping backups of your data can act as a safety net in case of unexpected disasters, either human-caused or natural. However, all these data backups can go worthless if they haven’t been tested over time. A backup that can not restore data when needed is of no use.
We help clients design backup policies that align with their recovery requirements. We determine this by understanding how much data they can afford to lose and how quickly they need it back. More importantly, we simulate a disaster scenario every month, restoring data from backups into a sandbox environment and checking for data integrity. This mock drill helps with better cloud data management and exposes any vulnerabilities before they impact production.
5. Monitor and Log Every Activity
One key cloud data security best practice is paying attention to every activity. Proper monitoring can help spot unusual behavior before it becomes a real problem, and continuous logging can let you keep an audit trail of all the activities to refer back to in case something goes wrong later.
For example, we helped one client identify a spike in data downloads from a location their team had never worked in. Turned out it was an internal mistake, not a breach, but catching it early prevented a serious issue.
6. Stay on Top of Configuration Management
Cloud environments are flexible, but that also means small mistakes can lead to big problems. A misconfigured storage bucket or an overly permissive policy can easily expose your cloud data.
We use automated tools and manual reviews to scan for misconfigurations and clean them up before they cause harm. It’s part of our regular check-ins with clients, and it helps them stay compliant without slowing down their work.
7. Conduct Regular Security Reviews
Security is not a one-time thing. It is actually a continuous cycle of review, improvement, and adaptation as the threats evolve and business needs change.
At Bacancy, we perform a full security audit for our cloud clients every 6 months. We then deliver a tailored action plan and track updates to closure. This routine helps keep clients aligned with industry standards and ready for any security audits or certifications.
Real-World Example
One mid-size SaaS company came to us after a security audit flagged several issues. They had no encryption, no multi-factor authentication, and their team had broad access to everything. They didn’t know where to start.
We walked them through the basics. First, we turned on encryption and implemented MFA across all systems. Then we reworked their access controls and added real-time monitoring. Finally, we helped them set up a backup and recovery plan they could trust.
Within a month, their cloud security posture improved massively. More importantly, their leadership team felt in control. They could see what was happening, why it mattered, and what steps were keeping their data secure. This is a perfect example of what these cloud data security best practices can do if implemented the right way.
Final Thoughts
Cloud data security is not just just a checklist, it is something you need to get right from the start and keep improving as you grow. These cloud data security best practices are what we stick to at Bacancy because we've seen how much they help businesses stay safe and move forward with confidence.
If you’re looking for someone who understands the tech and treats your data like it’s their own, Bacancy's cloud data services are there for you. We’ll help you protect your data without overcomplicating the process.
