The ransomware attack affecting the cloud hosting service provider Netgain must be of concern to its customers. All indications show that Netgain has been working very proactively to isolate and mitigate the situation while keeping the customer base fully informed. This response is appropriate and admirable given the situation. In the wake of these types of data security incidents, the best-case scenario is that the service disruptions are a nuisance but that sensitive data remains protected. All enterprises should take away from this incident a very simple lesson. If your business relies on cloud services for data handling, processing, and storing, you are responsible for the protection of sensitive data. If regulations are broken, your business must answer for the way that you handle and protect peoples’ sensitive data in the cloud. This should not inspire fear but rather should encourage you to reassess how you are protecting your customers’ most sensitive, private information no matter where that data is. Are you relying on more traditional perimeter- and access-focused methods of data protection, or are you taking a more data-centric approach that protects the data itself? If incidents like this can cause you to rethink your strategy and ask yourself questions like this, then that is a good outcome for your business.  Read Less