New Research Shows Enterprises Not Evaluting Cloud Security
Posted by Margaret Dawson on May 13, 2010
Interesting article I found today on Bobs Guide, which covers the financial industry and related news. The article discussed a new study that claims more than two-thirds of IT practitioners think the security of cloud computing technology is not effective enough to safely store financial information. This stat was one of the findings from a joint report by CA and the Ponemon Institute, which showed that many of the US organizations that responded have concerns about the safety of storing data in the cloud.
This is not surprising, as cloud security continues to be a hyped topic. However, what is surprising is that 47 percent of these same respondents stated that their their organizations are not analyzing security risks before implementing cloud based technologies. Wow. We’re terribly concerned about data protection in the cloud, but we’re just gonna throw our data up there and see what happens. I can’t imagine why that’s not working.
According to CA’s press release: The study, entitled “Security of Cloud Computing Users,” reveals that more than half of U.S. organizations are adopting cloud services, but only 47 percent of respondents believe that cloud services are evaluated for security prior to deployment. Of equal concern, more than 50 percent of respondents in the U.S. say their organization is unaware of all the cloud services deployed in their enterprise today.
As we’ve stated repeatedly in our blogs (mostly by our VP of engineering, Ian Huynh), you need to do some serious due diligence around security before you ever deploy or sign a contract with a c loud vendor. Data security is not only about encryption but needs to cover a vast range of security, privacy, identity management, key management, access control and other areas. What’s more, cloud security must be best in class across the application, the infrastructure supporting the technology, and with the client services personnel potentially accessing the data at the cloud vendor.
As Ian loves to say, “security is security,” and your security policies should translate directly to the cloud. If a vendor or your own IT department cannot maintain the same data protection levels in the cloud as you maintain in your on-premise network, then you need to look elsewhere. The cloud is not inherently any more insecure than traditional environments; however, all clouds are not created equal.
Review our cloud security basics to know what to look for and what to ask about cloud security.
Tags: bobsguide, Cloud Computing, Cloud Security, Ponemon Institute
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