Cloud Computing: A Security Analysis

BY STEVE HANNA
Cloud Security Journal on Ulitzer

November 30, 2009

Don’t worry about cloud security, ensure it

With its ability to provide users dynamically scalable, shared resources over the Internet and avoid large upfront fixed costs, cloud computing promises to change the future of computing. However, storing a lot of data creates a situation similar to storing a lot of money, attracting more frequent assaults by increasingly skilled and highly motivated attackers. As a result, security is one - if not the - top issue that users have when considering cloud computing.

Cloud Security Concerns
Storing critical data on a cloud computing provider’s servers raises several questions. Can employees/administrators at the cloud provider be trusted to not look at your data or change it? Can other customers of the cloud provider hack into your data and get access to it? Can your competitors find out what you know: who your customers are, what customer orders you are bidding on, pricing and cost information, and other critical data from your business? This information in the wrong hands would be devastating for a business. And what about privacy issues and government regulations?

In its young life, there already have been several cloud security breaches that …

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