Saturday, June 18, 2011

Cloud Computing Vulnerable to Hackers

I love this idea of cloud computing, but it's not particularly safe.

Interesting piece at Los Angeles Times, "Hacker attacks show vulnerability of cloud computing":
As hackers continue their rampage against the world's largest banks, defense contractors and technology companies, executives and government officials are confronting a sobering truth: The bad guys are winning.

The seemingly unending string of high-profile attacks, most recently against Citigroup Inc. and Sony Corp., have shown that nearly every organization is vulnerable to a growing contingent of well-trained and agile attackers who are finding security holes faster than they can be plugged.

"It's gotten very dangerous out there," said Stan Stahl, a security consultant and president of the Los Angeles chapter of the Information Systems Security Assn. "There's an epidemic of this stuff going on right now."

The increase in high-profile attacks comes as companies are looking to move more of their business operations online, including to the "cloud," in which computing tasks are outsourced to firms that maintain huge data centers around the world.

Despite the cloud's potential for cost savings and reducing the hassles of running in-house computer servers, security analysts say it may not yet be as safe as advertised — a warning that many companies are taking seriously.

Alex Bermudez, the security manager for Beachbody, a Los Angeles company that makes the popular P90X workout videos, said that although his company is beefing up security as it expands overseas, he's held off on shifting operations into the cloud.

"There are a lot of good technology companies doing the cloud well," he said, but having his company's data stored remotely, alongside data from many other firms, "is a little scary."
More at the link.

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