MFT in the Cloud: Key Considerations

If your organization wants to add the ability to transfer files via the cloud or even completely convert from an on-premises solution to a cloud solution for convenience or cost-effectiveness, there are a few considerations to help ensure the data entrusted to you is protected and managed.

Primarily, you’ll want to confirm that moving all or some of your file exchanges to the cloud:

• Maintains robust security
• Meets compliance requirements
• Meets or exceeds performance expectations
• Provides needed visibility and control
• Allows you to integrate with your overall data protection, IT strategies, and other software you depend upon

When you entrust your data to the cloud, that data lives in physical servers as well as data centers managed by the cloud computing services you choose. This business-critical data can move very efficiently between your organization and wherever in the world it is stored for more flexible access to the data used by your organization and entrusted to you by your customers and trading partners. This off-site storage method can help offset any costly downtime from local outages and even help reduce human errors around those critical sends.

Security Considerations in the Cloud

Moving all your file transfer business to the cloud or select portions of it is attractive for the flexibility, scalability, and faster deployment such a move offers. However, there are still concerns regarding how cloud technology can keep data secure and compliant.

“The big cloud computing platforms such as Microsoft Azure, Amazon Web Services, and Google Cloud, place securing their customer data as one of their highest priorities,” said Chris Bailey, Senior Product Manager, GoAnywhere MFT. “They invest in a substantial variety of resources to add protection to their customers’ need for privacy. However, even with all of these preventative measures, they can’t always reliably prevent data loss or compromise, or even occasional outages on the cloud server. That’s why using a managed file transfer solution capable of securely and efficiently transferring business-critical files via the cloud is an important aspect of the broader strategy of moving business processes to the cloud.”

Bailey adds, “Using Managed File Transfer (MFT) with the cloud can deliver several key advantages over more dated file transfer methods or even on-premises MFT installations. Primarily, MFT can offer enhanced security, reliability for critical uptime, help meet compliance standards, cost savings, visibility, fast onboarding, access from anywhere in the world, scalability, automation functionality, and improved collaboration – all compelling reasons to move your file transfers to the cloud.”

And according to Cybersecurity Insiders’ 2023 Cloud Security Report, managing workloads via the cloud is on the rise, with 39% of respondents having more than half of their workloads in the cloud. However, 95% of surveyed organizations find cloud security to be a significant issue, expressing concerns about their security posture in public cloud environments. Misconfiguration remains the biggest cloud security risk, according to 59% of cybersecurity professionals. This is closely followed by exfiltration of sensitive data and insecure interfaces/APIs (tied at 51%), and unauthorized access (49%).

Encryption is Key to MFT Security in the Cloud

Strong encryption protocols are vital to the cloud file transfer process; namely, end-to-end encryption. A robust Managed File Transfer (MFT) solution will let organizations (and their trading partners) select from a variety of protocols and encryption standards.

If cloud file data is properly secured with strong encryption protocols during transfers as well as when it is sitting idle on a server, the chance of a cloud breach is far less likely to result in data being exposed. You’ll want to ensure your MFT pick:

• Enforces encryption in transit and at rest
• Boasts a zero-trust architecture, which protects and controls your most critical assets - wherever they travel
• Provides various authentication methods such as single sign on (SSO) and multi-factor authentication (MFA)

With built-in encryption, GoAnywhere MFT offers options for how your data is encoded, whether it’s in motion or at rest to meet organizational as well as trading partner requirements.

Get the Guide: Secure Your Cloud Data

Compliance in the Cloud

According to Cybersecurity Insiders report, 37% of respondents noted compliance as their biggest concern about cloud security. This is notable as non-compliance can impart substantial financial repercussions, let alone reputational damage.

Organizations that must follow HIPAA, PCI DSS, GDPR or other industry regulations around how sensitive data is managed benefit from the encryption baked into robust MFT solutions. Even if breached, data protected via encryption cannot be read, so it becomes virtually useless to malicious actors.

And if your organization must comply with FIPS 140-2, validated encryption ciphers can be enabled for SSL and SSH protocols.

 “With the financial and reputational costs of non-compliance, organizations wanting to move file processes to the cloud would be wise to examine solutions that offer detailed audit log and reporting capabilities to both provide transparency around data movements and prove compliance,” added Bailey.

Sharing files while remaining compliant most often requires using encrypted connections as well as ensuring data integrity. One way to prove compliance is to provide audit logs to industry auditors. Solutions, such as GoAnywhere, can track all file movements and generate detailed logs and reports of who views files, where files are moved to, and whether they are kept secure both in transit and in storage.

Cloud Architecture, Administration and Visibility

With multiple cloud providers available such as Azure and AWS, organizations should ensure that any file transfer solution chosen can be operated on any of them for maximum usability.

A single point of control can also give administrators more control over security settings, reports, and audit trails to help reduce oversights and errors.  GoAnywhere offers:

• Real-time alerts: Know before your recipient does whether a transfer has failed, or whether there is unusual or unauthorized activity
• User-friendly dashboard: A single pane of glass for cloud-based file transfers makes monitoring and managing hundreds or thousands of daily file transfers efficient.

Cloud MFT is Scalable

As cloud-based MFT is not limited by physical storage barriers, data centers and on-site servers, scaling up the number of transfer loads as your business grows is no problem.

GoAnywhere also delivers high-availability and clustering along with disaster recovery capabilities to provide enterprise-level uptime and ensure that even during heavy transfer volume periods, business-critical data gets where it needs to be on time. 

Cloud File Transfers and API Integrations

The file transfer process need not live in a vacuum when moving that process to the cloud. With a robust MFT solution, you can integrate with the many cloud applications, services, and storage options used daily and remain secure and compliant.

Cloud Connectors let you integrate with APIs such as Salesforce. SharePoint, and S3 buckets, etc., so you can take advantage of private networks as well as cloud environments for automated workflows and file transfers.

It’s also important to ensure your MFT solution can integrate with any on-premises systems. Look for:

• Ability to provide hybrid connectivity to ensure your cloud MFT can connect with internal APIs, ERP, and databases.
• Secure agents: These lightweight applications can operate on-premises to automate file transfers and workflows and communicate with cloud services. An agent can extend access to resources that are otherwise not accessible to the MFT server itself.

MFT as a Service

If your IT staff is stretched thin, you can remove the task of choosing your own cloud computing as well as the need to set up cloud MFT when you choose MFT as a Service or MFTaaS. You’ll get all the cloud file transfer benefits but won’t need to manage cloud infrastructure.  GoAnywhere MFTaaS takes care of setup, hosting, and management making it easy to simply log in and start transferring files.

Cloud File Transfer Ease of Use

While your organization’s employees may already engage with cloud-based apps in their personal life, making the switch to a cloud file transfer solution should take into account the user-friendliness of the software. Solutions that are easy to use are those that get used over free, unsecure, and often cumbersome apps.

Consider solutions that offer:

• Dashboard-style interfaces
• Role-based Access Control (RBAC), which follows the best practice of granting the least privilege principle
• Multi-step templates for workflows
• Drag-and-drop scheduling ease

Enhance the Security of Your Cloud Data

Moving data to the cloud is not without risks. To help prevent data loss, IT teams must do their due diligence and take steps to proactively protect their organization’s data. This can start by diving into available cloud file transfer processes and solutions. Implementing a managed file transfer solution, like GoAnywhere MFT, lets businesses control how data is protected, in transit and at rest. With strong encryption protocols, file monitoring, and integration with cloud platforms, IT teams can be assured that business-critical or sensitive data is safe in a variety of environments without running outdated, unsecure expensive, time-consuming scripts and programs.