Cloud Security Mark Wood
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UNDERSTANDING HOW THE CLOUD SHAKES UP THE SECURITY STRATEGY
Mark Wood explores how third party involvement in the cloud impacts the traditional approach to IT security
More and more organisations are turning to cloud computing to solve their biggest technol- ogy and business challenges. By this stage, most of us are aware of the many benefits cloud has to offer: lower hardware and IT costs, ease of management and increased agility, to name a few. Yet when it comes to security, cloud is not a silver bullet. In fact, according to the Cloud Security Alliance, security is cited as the number one barrier to adoption of cloud services among organisations.
The good news is that there aren’t any new risks to consider just because IT is in the cloud: they are the same risks that we have collectively been dealing with for many years. The only difference now is the context in which they exist. One of the biggest threats with cloud computing is that data is taken outside the traditional parameters of the ‘office’ and a security breach could easily happen without the IT department knowing. Investing in cloud is being cited as critical to business innovation, but before making the jump to cloud, organisations need to understand how it affects the traditional approach to security.
THE SECURITY IMPACT OF A
MULTI-TENANT ENVIRONMENT When considering using a public or hybrid cloud
www.cloudcomputingintelligence.com January 2013 CCI Magazine
model, it’s important to understand the potential security risks. Multi-tenancy is one of the fundamental characteristics of these types of cloud models. Put simply, multi-tenancy is the ability for multiple custom- ers and users to share the same applications and/ or compute resources and it is this feature of cloud computing that creates the significant cost savings and efficiencies. On the other hand, because some or all of a company’s data is stored in a shared infra- structure or database with other customers a number of security issues come into play. The unknown nature of the other tenants is a real concern for businesses. For example: n Other tenants may attempt to hack into your server. n Other tenants may be vulnerable to a security breach as a result of not taking appropriate security measures which can potentially point to flaws in your own security and leave you at risk.
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