Author: Ian Betteridge
Date: 07/05/2009
Is cloud computing secure? It may be more secure than the server in your office.
I sat down yesterday with Chris Lindsay, general manager of BT's Business Applications, to talk to him about cloud computing . You'll be able to see the video in the near future, but one part of our conversation really struck a chord: the security aspects of cloud applications.
As Chris said, there's often a lot of nervousness about how secure using cloud computing applications is for a business. Because the data lives on a server somewhere "out there", rather than on a computer in the corner of your office, there's a vague feeling of it being out of control, and thus less secure.
In fact, cloud computing services can offer better levels of security than you're likely to get running things yourself. It frees you from having to worry about keeping your server up to date with patches and malware free, while making it far easier to determine who has access to the data.
Cloud computing companies spend a lot of time and effort making things as secure as possible - because they know that one data breach could mean ruin for their business.
In other words, it is the business of cloud computing companies to be secure - and thus, it's an area that they are likely to have a lot of expertise in. The key thing is choosing the companies which can meet your needs, and that's where a reliable partner like BT can help.
And when you read horror stories like the case of secret missile data found on second-hand hard drives at computer fairs, you end up wondering just how secure the data which sits in the corner of your office actually is. Perhaps the biggest security hole isn't your Internet connection, but the door that your equipment occasionally walks out of.