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Cloud Computing Introduces New Security Issues

Just as the widespread adoption of the Internet and the World Wide Web have brought their risks alongside their rewards, so the explosion of cloud computing also presents its unique challenges to individuals and organizations signing up for cloud based services.

The decision to outsource part of an organization’s IT department to a cloud-based service provider or to move internal IT services to a cloud platform must be taken with security among the top considerations.

The different models for cloud service delivery (IaaS, PaaS, SaaS) have different security implications and requirements for the customer. The less control you have the greater you must rely on the security practices of the provider. Understanding the division of responsibilities between you and the service provider is vital before moving anything of value to a cloud.

All clouds are not the same. Private clouds aren’t necessarily free of the security concerns that plague public offerings. The fact that they are inside the corporate firewall does not automatically make them secure.  While a private cloud may seem more secure, they may introduce new threats and vulnerabilities that need to be understood. Even a locally hosted private cloud represents a potentially high concentration of data and services, which may have been far more distributed in the past. Understand the security implications of who now has access to that private cloud, where it is hosted (internal or external) and what systems are coexisting.

While the benefits of cloud may be that you need to worry less about how computing resources are provided, your responsibilities as to compliance and legal responsibility remain the same. Healthcare providers should take special note: the costs and bad publicity of breach of healthcare data you put in the cloud will still be attributed to you even if you believe the provider is at fault.

The cloud presents a way for business units to quickly provision systems and services, utilize resources, and de-provision those same systems so quickly that traditional approaches to good governance, security and due diligence are unlikely to keep pace. If you have security and compliance challenges now, cloud computing will simply exacerbate such problems. If it’s bad, cloud computing will make it worse, faster. The cloud paradigm is disruptive – it is worth noting that the way you worked in the past may not obtain in the future.

Read more here.

Source: cloudcomputingzone.com | 14 Apr 2011 | 3:42 pm