Security in the cloud. This is the re-occurring theme when the technology conversation turns to cloud computing. Usually that's followed by "Where's my data?" or "Who can get access to my data?" or "Do I have complete control of my own data?" Security in the last twelve months has become the real deal breaker, & issues experienced by a high profile name in the technology world like Sony really made alot of people who have been on the fence about whether to take some of their business critical systems into the Cloud.
Recently, the Ponenmon institute conducted a study that revealed that 67% of the IT professionals questioned admitted that their respective organisations were vulnerable to hackers due to lax firewall security. Scarier was that 42% of those surveyed said that were they breached or attacked, they'd have no way of knowing what was compromised. And it got worse with over half saying they were of the opinion that their staff had no knowledge about the potential risks of open firewall ports.
The full insights of that study would appear shocking to those outside the Cloud Computing industry, but to those in it, it's not, but it also isn't the full story. The study neglects the real root of the issue; good security governance from the desktop upwards in any infrastructure. The truth is, there seems to be a general lack of knowledge about security & the implications of security issues from the receptionist to the CEO, with no-one seemingly taking full responsibility for it. No-one drawing a line in the sand about where the buck truly stops.
People leaving their screens unlocked, downloading software, or opening e-mail attachments without care, providing the opportunity for those out there to re-enact a digital version of the siege of Troy. There's even less of a responsibility taken by those who code websites, or are designers-for-hire. Many don't seem to understand the platforms they are building for, or understand how the applications they design & build for clients work in the cloud.
The issue really comes down to one single fundamental questions; would any of us leave our wallet down for anyone to peruse at will or take? The answer is no, we wouldn't. Data in any business IS the wallet of the company. It has to be given the same reverence, respect & care. Sure, the questions about where your data is, or who has access to it are valid, but the real question any organisation must ask is simple & stark; do WE ourselves treat our data the way we expect our service providers to treat it?
As sure as you could establish a cloud solution with a cloud service provider, then pen test that to within an inch of its life, the more important pen tests need to be done within your own organisation. One of the continually growing areas of access compromise is people taking advantage of social engineering; the process of obtaining information and or access through deceit.
People are still taking calls from people claiming to be from well known technology companies to run pieces of software on their machines, only to later find themselves compromised, exploited and or defrauded. People are still clicking on links in e-mails telling them to log on & confirm passwords. Ask any online gamer how often they've heard of someone getting compromised.
The simple truth of this is, no matter how good the hardware platform is, how good the process is from the service provider, & how good you think your staff is, the real threat to the security of your business comes from within. Your service provider is only as good as your own instructions, your own knowledge & understanding, & your own ideals, & those ideals being kept rigidly.
A degree of suspiciousness, caution & paranoia is not only healthy, but acceptable as well as needed in today's Digital Age. The level of concern about security in the cloud is really to do with business' own insecurity over its own processes, data handling ideals than what the service provider's level of security offers. If you can sleep well at night knowing your wallet is safe, shouldn’t your data in your business be able to feel the same?
Showing posts with label access control. Show all posts
Showing posts with label access control. Show all posts
Wednesday, November 16, 2011
Wednesday, May 4, 2011
Episode 5: Cloudy with a chance for goofballs & legal headaches.
Cloud. Security. Two words consumers of the cloud want together, side by side. Hand in hand. In the early days of the cloud, it was the easiest card to pull to deter people from moving to the cloud. To some degree, it's less of an issue with the normalisation of 'cloud' (or is that rebranding of existing systems as cloud, another debate for another day) into every-day Internet services such as Google GMail, Apple iTunes, SalesForce, MSN Hotmail, & the countless other software-as-a-service or platform-as-a-service interactions we consume online.
And yet, a study released last week by the Ponemon Institute in conjunction with CA Technologies shows that in Europe 35% of I.T. professionals strongly agreed or agreed that I.T. leaders in their organisations are concerned about the security of cloud computing resources that is provided to their customers. That is utterly incredible. Not to mention utterly irresponsible. In the U.S. this figure was even lower at 23%. (To see a breakdown on the sampling, click here).
Even on the face of this set of statistics alone, in Europe a little over a third of people tasked with setting the I.T. agenda in businesses that deploy cloud services care about the security of use to be extended to their own customers. Some people when presented with this would be horrified & retreat further from ever going near the cloud.
What is scarier again is that in Europe, approx. 46% of cloud service providers think that security is important when it comes to their operations & how they handle data, & the study went further to then suppose that security is not part of the reason people use their cloud services.
So, almost half the cloud providers in Europe have a complete disregard for the security of your personal data & assume because as a customer you don't state it up front, & the biggest reason to move to the cloud for people is to reduce cost, it's something they should disregard. Now, there's a train of thought (and legally bound via the Data Protection Act) here that says that as the owner of a business, you are ultimately responsible for the security of your customer information; i.e. credit cards, customer details etc.. This goes for the customer using Cloud services to enable their business, & also the cloud service provider.
Want the truly scary statistics? In a combined result of U.S. & European cloud providers just 37% responded they were either confident or very confident they could identify & authenticate users before granting access to services/data/systems, while 81% of that same sample said they were also confident or very confident they provided access to highly qualified I.T. security personnel.
81% said they can provide access to highly qualified I.T. personnel, yet those same people are only 37% confident in an absolute fundamental of security, leaving I.T. aside - access control; making sure the right people are able to access a resource & keeping the wrong people out. That is not only mind-blowing, but nothing short of disgraceful. Whatever about maintaining up-time, or performance, controlling access to the data of god knows how many people's personal information should at all times be paramount to absolutely everything else. There should be NOTHING more important than rigid controls on that aspect. Losing people's personal data through poor access control is the equivalent to leaving your house unlocked or unsecured.
I could go into further shocking details or summaries from the report, but I've linked it earlier in the article, & will close instead on the real crux of what I'm trying to get at here with these revelations.
You start an Internet business. It's great because you can keep costs down unlike a traditional bricks & mortar business. You can get up & running fast, & buy 'expertise' to do so relatively cheap & from around the world. And that's great, but there's one absolutely fundamental question you should always ask yourself;
"If this was a business on the high street, what considerations would I be giving to security, insurance & risk?"
The recent breaches with Sony should bear enough testament to how much furore, unwanted media attention & pending legal action in the U.S. & Europe they have brought down upon themselves over the breaches of approx. 77 million PSN users. Sony is also being investigated in Ireland by the Data Protection Commissioner over the incidents that affected Irish PSN users. Lets us not forgot the incidents in Ireland in recent times, two high-profile ones being the Irish Blood Transfusion Services, & Bord Gais .
Data protection breaches are bad for business, & will earn you as a business a very uncomfortable conversation with the Data Protection Commissioner of Ireland, who in recent years following high profile incidents has taken a shine to dispensing costly fines to businesses. A good blog post by ICS IT Law was written a little over a year ago on this topic, which provides a compelling further exploration on this topic. If as a business you are unsure about data protection, or the levels of data protection exercised by your cloud service provider, please read the information at this link from the Irish Data Protection Commisioner.
And yet, a study released last week by the Ponemon Institute in conjunction with CA Technologies shows that in Europe 35% of I.T. professionals strongly agreed or agreed that I.T. leaders in their organisations are concerned about the security of cloud computing resources that is provided to their customers. That is utterly incredible. Not to mention utterly irresponsible. In the U.S. this figure was even lower at 23%. (To see a breakdown on the sampling, click here).
Even on the face of this set of statistics alone, in Europe a little over a third of people tasked with setting the I.T. agenda in businesses that deploy cloud services care about the security of use to be extended to their own customers. Some people when presented with this would be horrified & retreat further from ever going near the cloud.
What is scarier again is that in Europe, approx. 46% of cloud service providers think that security is important when it comes to their operations & how they handle data, & the study went further to then suppose that security is not part of the reason people use their cloud services.
So, almost half the cloud providers in Europe have a complete disregard for the security of your personal data & assume because as a customer you don't state it up front, & the biggest reason to move to the cloud for people is to reduce cost, it's something they should disregard. Now, there's a train of thought (and legally bound via the Data Protection Act) here that says that as the owner of a business, you are ultimately responsible for the security of your customer information; i.e. credit cards, customer details etc.. This goes for the customer using Cloud services to enable their business, & also the cloud service provider.
Want the truly scary statistics? In a combined result of U.S. & European cloud providers just 37% responded they were either confident or very confident they could identify & authenticate users before granting access to services/data/systems, while 81% of that same sample said they were also confident or very confident they provided access to highly qualified I.T. security personnel.
81% said they can provide access to highly qualified I.T. personnel, yet those same people are only 37% confident in an absolute fundamental of security, leaving I.T. aside - access control; making sure the right people are able to access a resource & keeping the wrong people out. That is not only mind-blowing, but nothing short of disgraceful. Whatever about maintaining up-time, or performance, controlling access to the data of god knows how many people's personal information should at all times be paramount to absolutely everything else. There should be NOTHING more important than rigid controls on that aspect. Losing people's personal data through poor access control is the equivalent to leaving your house unlocked or unsecured.
I could go into further shocking details or summaries from the report, but I've linked it earlier in the article, & will close instead on the real crux of what I'm trying to get at here with these revelations.
You start an Internet business. It's great because you can keep costs down unlike a traditional bricks & mortar business. You can get up & running fast, & buy 'expertise' to do so relatively cheap & from around the world. And that's great, but there's one absolutely fundamental question you should always ask yourself;
"If this was a business on the high street, what considerations would I be giving to security, insurance & risk?"
The recent breaches with Sony should bear enough testament to how much furore, unwanted media attention & pending legal action in the U.S. & Europe they have brought down upon themselves over the breaches of approx. 77 million PSN users. Sony is also being investigated in Ireland by the Data Protection Commissioner over the incidents that affected Irish PSN users. Lets us not forgot the incidents in Ireland in recent times, two high-profile ones being the Irish Blood Transfusion Services, & Bord Gais .
Data protection breaches are bad for business, & will earn you as a business a very uncomfortable conversation with the Data Protection Commissioner of Ireland, who in recent years following high profile incidents has taken a shine to dispensing costly fines to businesses. A good blog post by ICS IT Law was written a little over a year ago on this topic, which provides a compelling further exploration on this topic. If as a business you are unsure about data protection, or the levels of data protection exercised by your cloud service provider, please read the information at this link from the Irish Data Protection Commisioner.
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