Independent Artist Day™

How to Celebrate Independent Artist Day™

Celebrating Independent Artist Day™ is a perfect time for engaging with and supporting the independent art community. Here are some ways to immerse yourself in the spirit of this special day:

Discover New Artists

Spend the day exploring online galleries like Minted. Look into art’s many styles and mediums, and find a new favorite artist. Maybe you’ll even invest in your first piece of fine artwork.

Purchase Independent Art

One of the best ways to support artists is by purchasing their work. Whether you spend your money on a painting, a print, or a handcrafted piece, buying directly from independent artists helps sustain their craft.

Participate in Online Voting

Platforms like Minted often hold design challenges where the public can vote for their favorite pieces. Participate in these votes to help determine which artworks get featured and produced.

You give a much-needed hand-up to an indie artist when you participate.

Attend Local Art Shows

If there are art shows or exhibitions in your area on Independent Artist Day™, make a point to visit them. These events are great opportunities to see art in person and meet the artists behind the work. You might not realize it, but public support is crucial in making these events a success.

Share Your Finds on Social Media

Spend a little time on Independent Artist Day™ using your social media platforms to promote independent artists. Share the artists’ work, tag them, and use hashtags like #IndependentArtistDay to spread excitement and awareness of their art.

Create Your Own Art

Do you have some hidden artistic talent? Have you been too shy to share? Use Independent Artist Day™ as the nudge you need to share it with the world.

If you’re artistically inclined, celebrate the day by creating something yourself. It’s a great way to connect with the creative process and understand the challenges and joys of being an independent artist. When you feel ready, share it online with your friends and family.

Host an Art-Themed Gathering

Invite friends and family for an art-themed party. You could include activities like a group painting session, an art trivia game, or a showcase of local artists’ work.

Educate Yourself About Art

Even if you have never studied art, it is helpful to understand all that goes into the creative process – and how hard it can be for artists to earn a living at their crafts.

Take some time on Independent Artist Day™ to read about independent artists’ challenges. Understanding their journey can deepen your appreciation for their work and the art community.

Facts About Independent Artist Day

Cloud Misconfigurations Have Become a Leading Cause of Breaches 

Industry studies have repeatedly found that simple cloud misconfigurations, such as leaving storage buckets publicly accessible or failing to restrict inbound traffic, account for a large share of cloud data exposures.

IBM’s 2024 Cost of a Data Breach report estimated that misconfigured cloud storage and other accidental data leaks were involved in nearly one in five breaches, and that breaches in public cloud environments cost organizations about 10% more on average than those in on‑premises data centers.  

The “Shared Responsibility Model” Shifts Part of Security to Customers

Major cloud providers such as Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure, and Google Cloud use a “shared responsibility model,” where the provider secures the underlying infrastructure but customers must correctly configure access controls, encryption, and identity management.

Misunderstanding this division of duties remains a recurring root cause of incidents, as many organizations assume their provider fully handles security and then overlook tasks like hardening virtual machines or locking down cloud storage.  

Zero Trust Emerged as a Direct Response to Cloud and Remote Work

Zero trust security, popularized by Forrester and later recommended by the U.S. National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), was developed to handle a world where applications and data sit in the cloud and users connect from anywhere.

Instead of trusting anything inside a corporate network by default, zero trust requires continuous verification of user identity, device health, and context for every cloud request.

NIST’s 2020 publication on zero trust architecture explicitly cites cloud services and remote users as key drivers for this change in security design.  

Stolen Cloud Credentials Are Now a Top Attack Vector 

As businesses moved key systems into SaaS and public cloud platforms, attackers shifted tactics from exploiting server vulnerabilities to stealing logins and API keys.

Verizon’s 2024 Data Breach Investigations Report found that use of stolen credentials remained one of the most common ways cybercriminals accessed cloud resources, especially in web applications, often through phishing or credential stuffing attacks that reused passwords from earlier breaches.

Cloud Providers Routinely Store Multiple Copies of “Deleted” Data

Many cloud storage and SaaS platforms maintain multiple replicated copies and point‑in‑time backups of customer data across regions for resilience, which means information may persist long after a user presses delete.

The U.S. Federal Trade Commission notes that service providers often retain data for legal, business, or disaster recovery purposes, and that achieving true deletion may require following specific procedures or retention agreements rather than relying on a simple user‑interface delete button.  

Global Privacy Laws Directly Shape Cloud Security Architectures

Regulations such as the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and the U.S. health‑sector law HIPAA have pushed cloud customers and providers to redesign security controls around data minimization, encryption, and access logging.

GDPR’s restrictions on cross‑border data transfers and its requirement for “appropriate technical and organizational measures” have led many companies to choose specific cloud regions, implement stronger key management, and negotiate detailed data‑processing agreements with cloud vendors.

Most Organizations Now Use Multiple Clouds, Increasing Complexity

Instead of relying on a single provider, many enterprises spread workloads across several public clouds and private environments in a “multicloud” or hybrid architecture.

Surveys by the Cloud Security Alliance and others show that this approach is now the norm, but it also makes security harder because each platform has different configuration models, logging formats, and identity systems, which can create blind spots if they are not unified under a consistent security strategy.