Will Security Kill The?Cloud?

Posted by Lauren Ellis on September 29th, 2014

Hardware such as thumb drives, cell phones, laptops and even computers are becoming outdated in terms of their utility as data storage devices. They are easily lost, stolen or prone to damage by viruses or even physical destruction by an unfortunate fire or an accidental dunk in a swimming pool. The cloud has done away with this type of concern today, but what about cloud security?

For all of the problems solved by the cloud, there are significant security risks that can plague a cloud-based system and these risks are weighing heavily on businesses that are considering cloud utilization. According to Talkin’ Cloud writer Chris Talbot, “concerns about security are not only not decreasing; they’re increasing. A previous report from October 2011 indicated 25 percent of businesses expressed some concern over cloud security, but that figure increased to 42 percent in July 2013.” This concern over security has prevented a large number of firms from moving forward with a cloud-based data management initiative. One of the main concerns relating to cloud risks center around the fact that the network is outside of the network owned by any particular enterprise in most cases. This means that it could potentially be accessed by anyone in the world, which increases the risk of data breaches immensely.

Business that are new to cloud computing, or which are considering the move for the first time are not the only ones with security issues lingering. Experts in cloud computing are raising concerns as well. An article by Tech Times shows that 66 percent of the Open Data Center Alliance sees concerns over cloud security as a significant hurdle to the utilization of cloud-based data management for organizations. There are fears that these concerns could be heavy enough to severely affect the success of cloud computing.

Luis Corrons is the Technical Director of PandaLabs at Panda Security and in his view, the security issues are minor, “all benefits that companies can obtain from cloud services clearly exceed their security concerns.” He cites the NSA scandal as the primary issue among European organizations who have concerns over U.S. based cloud computing providers.

Security concerns relating to any organization still include the protection of data from outsiders and this concern holds true for both non-cloud organizations and cloud-based organizations.
When it comes to the risks unique to cloud users, there is a substantial risk of data breaches by other cloud tenants utilizing the same service, and there concern over the cloud provider’s misuse of data. These two new risks are problematic for many enterprises that are worried about secure data. Experts believe that as long as the risks of infiltration by cloud tenants and cloud providers is managed properly that the initial risks of breaches by outsiders will be improved considerably by moving to cloud-based data storage.

Cloud providers will bear the greatest burden of proving that cloud-based systems stand up to security concerns. While lawmakers continue to establish privacy standards across many different industries, experts remain convinced that the free market would ultimately find solutions that will meet the expectations of concerned cloud users. The underlying belief is that cloud providers who are interested in surviving will have to prevail on safety concerns and that they will have to prove through demonstration that their systems are secure and reliable.

Data security has always followed technological advancements in computing and data storage. This was true from the first time that data was actually stored. Security has always been an afterthought and cloud computing is no different. There are so many benefits to cloud computing that the need will facilitate sound security advancements as time progresses.

Author :
Lauren Ellis is a research analyst covering the technology industry’s top trends & topics, focusing on Cloud Security, Cloud Computing, Data Loss Prevention etc.,