Next-Gen Security (via Cloud): Part 2 – Data and Information
Data and Information
When enterprises begin to use public cloud computing offerings, they receive the benefits of paying as they go and foregoing the cost of a new layer of infrastructure.
You don’t have to worry about managing hardware, operating systems and vast arrays of storage, and you don’t have to worry about the physical location of your data…or do you (data jurisdiction is an important issue isn’t it)?
That’s one of the benefits of cloud computing, and one of the risks. Laws and legislation don’t move as fast as information technology, and wherever data is physically stored determines to a great extent the laws it is governed under.
For instance, data stored by US firms within data centers located within the European Union are likely to have differing subpoena rules than if they were stored in the United States.
If you are a company in Canada, who starts using Salesforce.com to manage highly sensitive data, how do you deal with the fact that Salesforce.com’s data center is located within the United States? At a minimum, you’ll need a level of encryption you can trust.
Simple, Salesforce.com provides encryption! However, the encryption keys are stored on Salesforce.com’s servers. Ok, maybe your organization can work with a data tokenization provider.
But wait, there’s a reason that Forrester analyst Jonathon Penn predicts that”Security And the Cloud” will be a $1.5 billion market by 2015.
Enter CipherCloud, a startup that recently came out of stealth. CipherCloud provides data encryption and tokenization for a number of cloud services, such as Salesforce.com and Google Apps, through a virtual appliance that is installed on the network of the enterprise. The virtual (SW) appliance then encrypts the data before it is sent to the cloud application. The encryption keys reside within the enterprise and are not extended out onto any cloud services.
The encryption isn’t without a cost in performance. But the performance hit is about 5 percent. CipherCloud’s appliance comes with volume pricing starting at $20 per user a month.
CipherCloud was founded by Pravin Kothari, who also was founder and CTO of IT-GRC provider Agiliance and co-founder and VP of engineering at security information and event management software maker ArcSight.
More on the use of Cloud for securing your applications and processes; networks, servers and endpoints; and physical infrastructure to come….
Related Articles:
Next-Gen Security (via Cloud): Part 1 – Identity Management
Next-Gen Security (via Cloud): Part 3 – Application and Process
Next-Gen Security (via Cloud): Part 4 – Networks, Servers and Endpoints
Next-Gen Security (via Cloud): Part 5 – Physical Infrastructure
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