Taming the Wild West
siliconrepublic.com
Overview
Can you reap the benefits of the cloud?
Perhaps you are not yet convinced that the benefits of the cloud outweigh the considerable legal and regulatory risks. Or maybe you are waiting for the right moment to commit. You ask, "Are we ready to shoulder the responsibility of moving our data to the cloud?" and "Do we really know what good cloud security is for our company?"
The cloud is a fast-moving target that will operate very differently six months from now than it does today. It is clear, however, that companies are already reaping game-changing benefits by using the cloud to, for example, improve time to market or quickly scale up or down their capacity demands. And many are doing so in a controlled and secure way, either using the cloud provider's services or supplementing those services in-house.
Indeed, the cloud represents a fresh chance for organisations to rethink their approach to information security. Typically, security is a bolt-on affair, limited to dealing with the inadequacies of a specific technology. That approach is reactive and bottom-up.
As companies transition to the cloud, they have the opportunity to adopt a top-down approach in which the security framework is understood, set and supported by management. And in many cases, organisations will not own the security mechanisms themselves. An effective cloud security programme will delegate layers of security to various parties, with cloud providers doing their part, as well.
Security management is about protecting the company and its assets. It is not a purely technical issue. The topic covers legal, compliance and regulatory requirements, hackers and attackers, threats and vulnerabilities. So far, the security race has not fully kept pace with the speed at which the cloud model is moving. That will change rapidly, as cloud providers continue to mature their security operations, the law catches up with technology, and standards emerge to address the risks of a multi-tenant computing environment.
Based on Accenture's experience working with the providers and clients breaking ground in the cloud, we recommend five principles for crafting an effective cloud security strategy.
Five principles for crafting a security strategy:
1. Know your appetite for data privacy and security risk.
2. Expect to share responsibility.
3. Demand transparency and accountability from cloud providers.
4. Use the cloud to solve identity and access management issues.
5. Architect solutions that address the risk.
Original Page: http://siliconrepublic.com/reports/partner/25-accenture/report/381-taming-the-wild-west-how
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