back to article What you need to know about keeping your cloud data safe

The first reaction many corporate users – even those who are quite technically aware – have when considering a migration to cloud computing is to worry about data security. It is a fairly natural emotional response of course; you are effectively surrendering a kind of ownership of your data over to a third party. So what if a …

  1. menotu

    Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't having all your data on the Cloud the same principal as when the US put all their warships in Pearl Harbour ?? ,and we know how that worked out....

    1. Destroy All Monsters Silver badge
      Holmes

      Historically inaccurate.

      Amazingly, the ships conveniently lined up in Pearl Harbor, were dreadnoughts that were from WWI except the Arizona. The crown jewels, the aircraft carriers, were otherwise occupied (either in the Atlantic or on resupply missions). Dodged a bullet there. Or, considering the clownish antics in trying to NOT tell Kimmel that he had a target painted on his back, maybe not.

      Of course, the comparison fails otherwise anyway.

  2. Ant Evans

    Warm feelings

    I'm not sure how you can have this conversation without discussing what goes by the name of data policy (gets one tangential mention in the article) but may more precisely be described as looking after your stuff properly. Looking after your stuff properly has dimensions - sensitivity, customer, jurisdiction, access and retention spring to mind. I'm sure we could think of five others.

    So you want to be asking yourself a few questions: do I know how to look after my stuff properly? Do I look after my stuff properly today? If all my sysadmins died or (heaven forbid) were inexplicably made redundant, could a random cloud person (possibly in a different cloud) 1. reconstruct my data and 2. look after it properly? Take a quiet moment to think about what it would mean to have perfectly safe data, but no idea what it was, whom it belonged to, who was allowed to see it, or how long to keep it.

    This is not just your cloud provider's responsibility. If you're shit on the ground and go to the cloud, you will get shit rain, at best.

    1. Chika

      Re: Warm feelings

      Would I want a "random cloud person" to do anything at all to my data? The whole article smacks of an apologists' view, especially if the security in question is being supplied by the same people that provide the cloud. We come back to the basic question of trust, one that is applicable as much to the cloud provider as to the absconding sysadmin you talk of. Since the whole NSA business came up, my view of cloud storage and computing has declined drastically, and that's before we even consider my starting position.

      Make no mistake, I know that the companies may well be as trustworthy as you like but, at the end of the day, you only have their word for it.

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