IT security is an increasingly important facet of operating a business – whether it be a small corner store or a major multinational corporation. This is especially true as many more companies are beginning to shift their data – an important aspect of decision making – from hard paper copies, to taking up space on hard drives and then to being stored in the cloud.

But, a recent BusinessWeek article cites that just because some businesses may have moved their data from the more manual services to the cloud, it doesn't mean they should skimp out on making sure that data is secure.

"They say they're getting rid of their IT department," said Joe Coyle, the CTO of Capegemini North America that created a service that helps companies determine whether they should migrate data to the cloud or not, to BusinessWeek. "I say, 'No. You still have to do this.'"

According to BusinessWeek, the biggest threat to cloud-stored data may be the company's inability to understand who is responsible for keeping it protected. Global tech provider IBM is customizing each contract it creates for clients before they start using their services for cloud computing to increase data security awareness.

This means some of the company's contracts go into great detail on what exactly happens when a server goes down or gets breached, while others hardly mention it.

Furthermore, more often than not, when a company leases space on a server to store data on that server it will most likely be in a remote location. The data's location complicates everything to the point where about 74 percent of IT security providers say that more training is needed for cloud issues.

In order for companies to maintain an accurate track on their data, they may want to consult a software application development company that can create a custom database software to store the data, regardless if they use the cloud as well.