The expert assessed the risks of data loss in the cloud due to attacks on data centers

Accidents in data centers, including attacks, can lead to the loss of personal data in cloud storage, but everything depends on the circumstances, told “Science Mail” chief operating officer of “ELVIS-PLUS” Fedor Dbar.

The degree of risk depends on the nature and scale of the emergency, as well as on the availability of backup copies of companies, he explained. If the storage is temporarily de-energized and the backup power systems fail, the data is usually stored and made available after the infrastructure is restored.

In October, a series of attacks on Yandex infrastructure in Russia took place. From October 8 to 11, data centers in Sasov, Ryazan region, in Kaluga and near Vladimir were hit. The attacks caused disruptions in the work of Yandex services such as Alice, Search, Maps, Taxi and Yandex Pay. To reduce the load, the company limited some of the functions of “Yandex 360”, including “Disk”.

According to Dbar, large cloud providers tend to use data backup, which is regulated by a number of Russian and international standards. Copies are placed in geographically distributed data centers, which reduces the risk of simultaneous loss of all data.

If the equipment is destroyed, and the provider does not have a backup, it is impossible to restore data from cloud storage, the expert warned. “In some cases, data can be recovered from a user’s device when contacted by data recovery specialists, but this is more of an exceptional situation than a reliable way of protection,” he said.

As the head of the department of analysis and assessment of digital threats of Softline Group Kristina Burenkova noted, when storing photos on the cloud, there is also a possibility of hacking an account. Hackers can copy personal photos and use them for blackmail. According to Burenkova, users often store not only personal, but also business information in the cloud - and then not only the owner of the vault, but also his employer can become a victim of blackmail.

If the login to the cloud is made from a corporate device or the password from the account is saved on it, not only personal data, but also the service infrastructure are at risk.

To reduce the risk of account hacking or cloud service failure, you need to use a unique complex password and two-factor authentication. You can not store corporate documents in the personal cloud, and personal cloud accounts should not be opened on work devices. Photos are better to additionally copy to an external drive or SSD and disable it after backup, and especially important pictures can be encrypted, said Burenkova.