For laboratories, data integrity, compliance and operational efficiency are paramount and cloud technologies offer critical opportunities. However, we know that with the move to the cloud comes the critical need for robust security and governance strategies to ensure that sensitive data remains secure and compliant with industry standards. In this blog post we’ll explore how adopting a comprehensive cloud governance strategy on AWS can help labs mitigate risks, optimise operations and achieve the highest level of data security with the power of QLIMS.
What is cloud governance?
Cloud governance enables customers to define requirements for security, cost and ongoing oversight of their cloud journey and ensure processes are optimised and consistently followed, especially in sensitive environments like laboratories. A robust cloud governance strategy helps you run your business well and keep it safe.
For labs handling sensitive research, clinical or test data, cloud security is non-negotiable. Imagine a scenario where a lab unknowingly exposes patient data or proprietary research due to improper cloud configuration. In the lab world, these kinds of oversights can lead to costly data breaches, loss of trust and non-compliance with standards like ISO 17025, HIPAA or GLP.
What do all these real-life situations have in common?
- A lab exposed confidential patient or research data due to misconfigured cloud infrastructure.
- A company realised that it failed to protect a server with a password, leaving a database of customer information unprotected.
- An organisation discovered a misconfiguration that left it open to data breach.
All of these organisations -and dozens more like them in a variety of industries, including highly regulated ones like healthcare– had a cloud computing strategy that took advantage of cloud benefits, but left out a critical component: cloud governance.
In practical terms, a robust cloud governance strategy helps you run your business well and keep it safe, offering a level of protection against a number of avoidable risks: data breaches, intellectual property theft, damage to brand and reputation and financial loss, as well as the risk of being out of compliance with mandates like HIPAA. In fact, Gartner, the leading IT research and advisory firm, predicts that “through 2025, 99% of cloud security failures will be the customer’s fault.”
Creating effective cloud governance is a two-step process:
- Understanding the four pillars of cloud governance: visibility, configuration, operations, and risk.
- Developing best practices for continuously monitoring, assessing, and optimising each of these.
In this blog post, we explored how a robust cloud governance strategy is essential for labs to maintain data security, compliance and operational efficiency in the cloud like QLIMS. In this second part, we will dive deeper into the critical components of cloud governance: visibility, configuration, operations and risks.
We understand how crucial laboratory data is. If you’re looking to keep your data secure and in trusted hands, reach out to us today to learn more about how we can help.
