Confidence Increases In Cloud Security

By Rick Delgado, contributing writer

If there’s one obstacle that’s proven the most formidable in impeding the adoption of cloud computing among businesses and other organizations, it’s the issue of security. The stories of security breaches hitting companies, governments, and schools have become common in today’s headlines. Leaders in these organizations may recognize the potential of using the cloud, but the mere thought of a security failure is enough to dissuade them from ever adopting the cloud in many instances.

At least that used to be the case. As grave as the concerns over cloud security have been, there’s been a noticeable shift in perception over just the past few years.

A 2014 survey by RightScale spells out what those changes are. One of the survey questions was about cloud security — more specifically if survey respondents saw cloud security as a “significant challenge.” About 31 percent of organizations classified as “cloud beginners” said they thought cloud security was still a challenge. Interestingly, only 13 percent of “cloud focused” organizations said the same thing. While these responses show that the more experience with the cloud an organization has, the more confident they are with cloud security, they also reveal a lot when compared to the results of the previous year’s survey. In 2013, 38 percent of cloud beginner organizations and 18 percent of cloud focused organizations said cloud security was a real challenge. In other words, the number of organizations worried about cloud security is declining by a fairly wide margin.

So what is the reason behind this noticeable decline? In reality, there are many reasons for the increase in confidence in cloud security. Recent security improvements from multiple organizations and developers have made using cloud computing much safer than in years past. For example, while not a common fixture in the cloud-computing landscape years ago, cloud security brokers have become more familiar. These brokers — sometimes known as cloud access security brokers or CASBs — are vendors that create apps that work almost like a security door between users and their cloud services of choice. The apps that have been developed by cloud security brokers effectively make sure data transmitted over the cloud is done so in a secure fashion. Since cloud security brokers exist specifically to aid and improve secure data transmissions, businesses can have extra confidence knowing their use of the cloud is safe.

Some of the improvements made to cloud security have come from partnerships. One example of just such a team-up was recently announced. FireHost has partnered with Dell cloud computing services in an effort to create a secure, single-tenant managed cloud.

Government agencies have also taken strides toward improving cloud security. To address security risks from using the cloud, the government has established standards to ensure greater security. Those standards include the Federal Information Security Management Act (FISMA) and the Federal Risk and Authorization Management Program (FedRAMP) — a cloud security program. Not only do these standards outline what all agencies must adhere to when using the cloud, they dictate the standards that cloud providers have to meet if they wish to work with the federal government.

These improvements and others that have been made to cloud security are impressive so far, and even greater improvements will likely come in the next few years. The result will be the continuing trend of greater confidence in the cloud, easing many people’s concerns. Worries over security can keep many businesses and organizations from making the leap, but with more efforts put toward security, a greater number of companies will likely be willing to embrace the cloud and receive the benefits of cloud computing.