Building Trust in the Cloud: Managing the Risk

Cloud computing essentially comes down to a different way of doing business but not a different way of doing security. Security professionals must still figure out how to secure and segregate data, establish trust zones, identify and leverage best practices and manage user access.

One topic that gets overlooked is business continuity. Cloud services vendors struggle to talk about their recovery objectives and capabilities. In sourcing providers, security executives need to focus on business continuity and keep in mind that recovery may not be possible if a cloud services provider goes under.

Cost saving is the number one driving force to go to the cloud. However, in comparing the costs and services of public clouds to private clouds, security executives are discovering the costs to be comparable. Because public cloud is not necessarily less expensive than in-house, cost as an attractive driver may not continue to bear up as well as a determining factor to move to the cloud.

The number of chapters in the Cloud Security Alliance continues to rise. The website (https://cloudsecurityalliance.org) provides a substantial number of free educational resources about cloud security and related topics.