At a surface level, it is easy to look at cloud computing and talk about how it presents security risks. Data is placed in the hands or a third-party provider, regardless of whether or not a company subscribes to application or IT Infrastructure services. At the same time, service level agreements can be difficult to manage effectively, governance can be a problem and shared server space can blur the lines between cloud customers. However, such a superficial analysis of the cloud misses many of the positive things it can accomplish when it comes to security, BusinessCloud9 reported.
According to the news source, the shared resources model of cloud computing could actually contribute to better security. When companies attempt to locally run deep scans of computer and server systems to identify malware and remove it, it slows performance considerably. With shared computational resources available that can be combined to support system analysis without having an adverse impact on performance. As a result, businesses can use the cloud as a pathway to more effective malware protection.
The powerful shared architectures of cloud computing also contribute to an ability to centralize data, application and infrastructure resources, the report said. It can, therefore, be much easier to analyze a large number of machines for malware, identify threats and enact protections more quickly and efficiently than if organizations are trying to do so on their own.
The ability to use cloud computing in conjunction with big data should also help improve data protection and security, the news source explained. In many cases, the most difficult aspects of fighting against malware is analyzing the extremely large number of threats and designing solutions that prevent them from becoming problems. Using the cloud to support big data analysis pertaining to malware can enable a more rapid response to new threats, enabling major security improvements.
For many businesses, cloud computing offers better security simply because some data protection responsibilities are taken away from the company and given to the third-party vendor. To have success in the cloud, it is vital that organizations manage risk effectively. They have to understand what their provider takes care of and what they have to do to protect data. When this is understand, the cloud can offer a much more secure option than traditional computing architectures.
