Securing the Cloud: How Safe Is that Data?
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Ingram Micro's Squier describes the opportunity for solution thusly:
"Help your customers classify and understand their information assets
and what's most important. Use Data Loss Prevention, encryption and
auditing controls to ensure that you don't lose control over where the
most critical information assets are going."
Taking comfort
Though potentially vexing, securing the cloud is not impossible. For
one thing, solution providers can take advantage of packaged security
services from companies such as Perimeter to protect their clients'
systems.
For another, solution providers can take comfort in knowing that many
of the elements to protect cloud computing already are in place, even
if some of the technology is still maturing, as IBM's Ollmen points
out. The trick is to implement processes and policies to safely
leverage the cloud infrastructure.
Arnie Bellini, CEO of business automation vendor ConnectWise, points
out the laptops people use in their travels to access data inside
firewalls have built-in security, and that data transmissions typically
are protected through encryption, VPN security or Transport Layer
Security (TLS). The point: Much of the security needed is already there.
Solution providers, however, have to rise to the challenge of helping
customers make a cultural shift. It may take some work to persuade them
of the safety of cloud computing because the predominant belief is that
data is secure when it's under your own roof, Bellini says.
Len Couture, managing director for SAAS solution provider Bluewolf's
CIO practice, says it comes down to customer education and positioning
by the solution providers.
He points out that when the industry first rolled out laptops, the
security didn't really exist. Adding security was in reaction to events
that necessitated it. "We built all this stuff long after the horse got
out of the barn," he says.
But with cloud computing, security awareness is strong and the
opportunity is there to become even more sophisticated in protecting IT
environments as reliance on the cloud increases, he says.
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