Cloud is a delight for hackers, says Novell

Stuart Sumner, Computing, Friday 17 September 2010 at 10:29:00

But an identity-infused enterprise might resolve the problem

An identity-infused enterprise, which would see a user's profile monitored by
every IT system they interface with in real time, is one way of tackling cloud
security problems, according to Brian Singer, senior solutions marketing manager
for security management at Novell.

Singer, who was speaking at the IDC Security Conference yesterday, added: "
This would make monitoring security in the cloud do-able. It would tell us who
the user is and what he is doing."

He went on to explain that without such a system, moving valuable data to the
cloud will make life easier for cybercriminals.

"The cloud is a delight for hackers," he said. "All the data is in the same
place, all they need to do is hack the cloud."

Monitoring of this sort would see an additional benefit coming from an
analysis of provisioning versus utilisation. If a user has access to a system
which the monitoring function proves they never use, their access privileges can
safely be removed. This improves both network security and regulatory
compliance.

Simon Young, general manager for server security at Trend Micro, agreed that
there are problems, and stated that once an organisation moves into the cloud,
traditional security does not exist.

Young suggested that encryption could be part of the answer. "You need to be
able to encrypt data in the cloud and keep sole control of the keys," he said.

Full story at http://www.computing.co.uk/computing/news/2269956/cloud-delight-hackers-novell