BBC blog - Security - it's all about The Cloud

Everyone's head is in the cloud

http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/thereporters/maggieshiels/2010/03/everyones_head_is_in_the_cloud.html

Maggie Shiels 08:35 UK time, Wednesday, 3 March 2010

As far as a gathering of security professionals, academics, government big wigs and industry experts are concerned, here at RSA the world's biggest security conference, it is all about the cloud.

Art Coviello, RSA president, quoted the words of MIT media labs visionary Nicholas Negroponte when he said back in 1997 "the internet was the most overhyped, underestimated phenomenon in history.

"Mark my words," said Mr Coviello "the same will be true of cloud computing."

Scott Charney, corporate vice president of Microsoft's Trustworthy Computing Group agreed and said "the cloud has become the big buzz and everyone is talking about the cloud."

"We have before us more data moving into the cloud and more sophisticated cyber criminals," said Qualys chief executive Philippe Courtot.

"Today cloud computing carries the promise of being able to build security into the very infrastructure of the cloud," he told BBC News.

As suggested there by Mr Courtot, the big issue is security and where else is that topic going to get a good airing but at the RSA conference which bills itself as "the place where the world talks security".

Mr Coviello revealed that while "cloud computing will complete the transformation of IT infrastructures unleashed by the internet," a survey by CIO magazine showed that 51% of chief information officers cited security as their "greatest concern surrounding cloud computing adoption."

Time and time again the RSA president re-iterated this message during his keynote address.

He said the cloud enables organisations to move away from their ageing infrastructures and instead focus their investments on the business. But, "something is holding back the full realisation of this vision, and that in a word, is security".

And that was when Mr Coviello threw down the gauntlet to the audience telling them that they had to step up and "embrace the challenge and seize the opportunity" and ensure safety is designed and built into the cloud so that everyone can feel confident about using it.

With the internet, safety and security are bolt-ons that have been added constantly over the years. But when it comes to the issue of the cloud, speaker after speaker at this RSA conflab underscored how vital it was to think about security as an early building block and not an afterthought.

The worrying thing about all of this as more and more of our personal information is stored in the cloud, is that I attended a high-level lunch with senior security professionals during RSA a year ago and back then they were highlighting the importance of this self same issue.

The message was the same about ensuring security is not a "Johnny come lately" idea and that the clock was ticking for the industry to grasp the nettle before it was too late.

While the drive to the cloud seems like a runaway train every business must hitch a ride on, the security concerns are clearly hampering it travelling in the fast lane.

One sobering, and yes obvious, thought comes from Microsoft's Scott Charney who told me that when it comes to 100% security, you are not going to get that in the cloud or for that matter anywhere else.

"There's no such thing as 100% security unfortunately, either in the physical world or in the electronic world."

Yes in life and online, there is always an element of risk.