Long seen as a panacea for businesses, the Cloud has been touted for its flexibility, scalability, and reduced costs. It has profoundly transformed the way organizations store, process, and access their data. For many, outsourcing these digital services was a no-brainer, even an economic necessity. However, this growing reliance on the Cloud is now revealing its limitations, particularly for critical sectors such as defense, healthcare, energy, finance, and public services, which are facing a surge in increasingly sophisticated cyberattacks. Faced with the rapid evolution of cyber threats, there is a gradual return to on-premises hosting, which allows companies to regain control over their data, thus reducing vulnerabilities linked to Cloud service providers.
Dwindling Trust in Cloud Providers
As attacks multiply, they prove that security cannot be entirely delegated to a service provider. In 2024, several massive data breaches affected companies not because of their own systems, but because of supply chain cyberattacks targeting the service providers to whom they had entrusted their data. By bypassing internal defenses, cybercriminals were able to access sensitive information, confirming the emergence of a strategy of targeting suppliers, who are often more profitable to attack.
The promise of flawless cybersecurity, which has long dominated the discourse around the Cloud, is now being called into question. In the last two years, several attacks have directly targeted the infrastructures of major service providers, with very real consequences for their customers. Companies such as Ticketmaster and Santander have paid the price. And it's not just small organizations: even giants like Microsoft have seen their reputations tarnished by data leaks. The US Cyber Safety Review Board has strongly criticized Microsoft's security culture, following the attacks that hit the company in 2023 and 2024. The discovery of numerous security flaws has shaken the trust that many users place in the big names in the cloud.
Regaining control of sensitive data
Behind these high-profile cases lies a broader issue: data control. Beyond technological choices, it is above all a question of governance. Data localization, access rights, and guarantees in the event of an incident, whether technical or legal, have become major issues. This reality particularly concerns sectors such as defense, healthcare, finance, and critical infrastructure, where information confidentiality is essential. These players must exercise constant vigilance, without being able to blindly trust systems they do not control.
In this context, the On-Premises model is once again attracting attention. Long considered too cumbersome and expensive, it is now seen as an alternative to guarantee a high level of security and sovereignty. Hosting data and cybersecurity devices internally, in environments isolated from the Internet, allows for regaining control over strategic assets. This is not a retreat, but a process of control, particularly for sensitive systems or those subject to particularly strict regulatory frameworks.
A resilience strategy in the face of a systemic threat
However, not everything is intended to be internalized, but certain layers, those relating to workstation security, threat detection, or incident management, deserve special attention. As such, new solutions are emerging, capable of operating in autonomous mode while offering the performance of Cloud tools. This is the case, for example, of EDR technologies offered in an On-Premises version, designed to operate in completely disconnected environments. This approach combines technical efficiency and operational independence.
Computer attacks are becoming more targeted, more destructive, and sometimes even political, but autonomy can make the difference between a temporary outage and total paralysis. It's not a matter of choosing between security or modernity, but of redefining priorities according to the challenges specific to each organization. Not all organizations need a digital bunker, but for those that manage sensitive data, returning to a controlled infrastructure is anything but a step backward. It's a strategic repositioning, designed to last.
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