Cloud Security Still Top Priority For Finance Execs In the wake of the recent Sony PlayStation hack, Amazon EC2 outage and Epsilon data theft, information security is once again back in the news – for all the wrong reasons. The web has become a playground for hackers and malcontents eager to phish, defraud and steal wherever and whenever they can. Policing this landscape is a logistical nightmare, and battle lines are being drawn and redrawn many thousands of times a day – which perhaps hints at why many of us are still uncomfortable with the idea of storing sensitive data in
Information security
IT Security is Integral to Cloud Policy Planning You’ve seen the movie version: a crack team of hardened (but lovable) thieves exercise their wits and prowess to break into a super-secure facility in order to steal a computer with data that will put away even worse bad guys and save an orphan or two as a bonus. These movie anti-heroes may be fiction, but the security of such facilities is not. For years, data centers have been constructed to manage and track physical access onto the premises. There is an entire industry around protecting access in the data centers with
Here are to two interesting perspectives regarding this topic. Who’s right? Below is a blog post found at ComputerWeekly discussing… An article in Computerworld UK reports that the latest advice from the Information Security Forum (ISF) is that information security professionals should treat cloud computing as they would any other external supplier. “Cloud is just outsourcing” according to Adrian Davis, a principal research analyst at ISF, speaking at an (ISC)2 Conference in London. It’s a shame they didn’t quote from my talk at that conference, as I take the opposite view. Cloud computing is light years apart from the dedicated, specified,
Can The RSA Conference Help Dispel Cloud Computing Security Fears? “The greatest barrier to success is the fear of failure.” – Sven Goran Eriksson, noted soccer coach. It’s no secret that fear about security, or lack of it, is the major stumbling block ahead of universal adoption of cloud computing. While many of the concerns are unfounded, some do, in fact, have bases. I have addressed these issues, and some possible solutions, in an earlier article (See: Cloud Computing Risks – And How to Deal With Them). In fact, I have argued that cloud computing is no less safe than
Computing Without Borders “Information is the oxygen of the modern age. It seeps through the walls topped by barbed wire, it wafts across the electrified borders.” – Ronald Reagan (1911-2004), 40th US President. “You live in the age of interdependence. Borders don’t count for much or stop much, good or bad, anymore.” – Bill Clinton, 42nd US President. Two Presidents, separated by decades, had spoken about the unrestricted flow of information across borders. What started with radio and television actually became a reality with the Internet, allowing Chinese dissidents to post anonymous messages against the single-party government and Iranian rebels
The Cloud Security Alliance’s Certificate of Cloud Security Knowledge (CCSK) is now open for testing at www.cloudsecurityalliance.org/certifyme. The industry’s first user certification program for secure cloud computing, the CCSK is designed to ensure that a broad range of professionals with responsibility related to cloud computing have a demonstrated awareness of the security threats and best practices for securing the cloud. As cloud computing is being aggressively adopted, it is critical that the industry provide training and certification of professionals to assure that cloud computing is implemented responsibly with the appropriate security controls. The Cloud Security Alliance (CSA) has developed a
Cloud computing is set to be mainstream in the business world in the coming years. Dr Giles Hogben is the program manager for secure services at the European Network and Information Security Agency (ENISA) What is the strategic imperative that would drive businesses across Europe to embrace cloud computing? Cost, flexibility and the ability to focus on your core business. It has been said that within two years cloud computing will be mainstream, do you agree? Many organisations I speak with already see it as a strategic imperative. The biggest reason holding people back is the lack of comparable information
