“Transferring data from your network to cloud includes processing and storing of the database and then processing for further use.”

Gerry Grealish (Perspecsys) in her article “Protecting the Data Lifecycle from Network to Cloud” at Informationweek, discussed about three phases for transferring data from your network to cloud and risk associated with them:

Phase 1# Data in motion: It is the term used for data as it is in transit. Risk is interference by third party. Cryptographic protocols, such as Secure Sockets Layer or Transport Layer Security can be used to protect data in this phase.

Phase 2# Data at rest: Data is stored in the form of file or database. Risk is reading of data by third party. Database solution can be used for protecting data like tools offered by CSP for encryption operations and there are various techniques like block level encryption technique.

Phase 3# Data in use: It is a data which is loaded into a process and is in the memory of the program that is running. And it is not protected by cloud service provider’s techniques like in-cloud based encryption techniques.

To know more about these phases and risk associated with them, read on: http://www.darkreading.com/cloud/protecting-the-data-lifecycle-from-network-to-cloud/a/d-id/1320249