{"id":1384,"date":"2010-07-22T07:00:07","date_gmt":"2010-07-22T15:00:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.formtek.com\/blog\/?p=1384"},"modified":"2010-07-22T07:00:07","modified_gmt":"2010-07-22T15:00:07","slug":"cloud-computing-can-we-make-it-more-secure","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/formtek.com\/blog\/cloud-computing-can-we-make-it-more-secure\/","title":{"rendered":"Cloud Computing: Can we Make it More Secure?"},"content":{"rendered":"

In survey after survey, companies are responding that they are incredibly intrigued by the potential of cloud computing, but almost universally there continues to be worry about the security of data that would get moved to the cloud. \u00a0Some vendor companies have viewed the cloud security problem as an opportunity and made it the focus of their business.<\/p>\n

One approach that some companies like Boston-based Nasumi<\/a> are taking is to ensure strong encryption of all data that is moved into the cloud. \u00a0By doing this the company notes the following advantages:<\/p>\n

1) \u00a0Multi-tenancy leaks. \u00a0 Cloud providers are able to pass cost savings onto their customers by building their software to support multi-tenancy, a technique that allows multiple customers to share the same server and resource installation of a software application but be partitioned in such a way that a single customer is not aware that the application is being shared with other customers. \u00a0Typically data is secured in the application using access controls and software-based security constructs. \u00a0 Because the data from all customers is typically stored in the same location there is the worry that data from one customer could potentially leak and be visible to another customer as a result of a software defect. \u00a0 If data is encrypted, even if it gets leaked, it’s not a problem since the data would need to be decrypted before the information would be compromised.<\/p>\n

2) Data Transmission. \u00a0If data is intercepted during transmission to or from the cloud location, the information could potentially be compromised. \u00a0Encrypting data prior to transfer solves this problem.<\/p>\n

SSL is an already accepted solution to securing the transmission of data, so the second advantage of data encryption is redundant to what already done today on a standard basis.<\/p>\n

Data encryption certainly makes sense for securing files uploaded to the cloud and later downloaded from it. \u00a0But most cloud applications \u00a0require some level of access to the data that they manage. \u00a0For example, even document management solutions would ideally have access to the file data to be able to construct a full-text search index. \u00a0 Data stored in relational databases are at the heart of popular cloud computing applications like CRM. \u00a0 For these cloud\/SaaS applications to be able to search, retrieve and present the data that they manage to users, the applications must be available to have access to the unencrypted data. \u00a0But once data is unencrypted on the server, the same issues around data security and data leaks become a worry again.<\/p>\n

While it seems clear that data encryption will play a key role in securing the cloud, encryption by itself is not the complete solution.<\/p>\n

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In survey after survey, companies are responding that they are incredibly intrigued by the potential of cloud computing, but almost universally there continues to be worry about the security of data that would get moved to the cloud. \u00a0Some vendor…<\/span><\/p>\n

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