Making a cloud computing environment secure and compliant
Cloud computing makes auditors cringe. Enterprises say it was hard enough to make virtualization “palatable” to auditors; cloud is going to be even harder. By breaking the links between hardware and software, virtualization liberates workloads from the physical constraints of a single machine. Cloud takes that a step further, making the physical location irrelevant.
Traditionally, control of information flows directly from ownership of the underlying platform. In the traditional security model location implies ownership, which in turn implies control. You build the layers of trust with the root of trust anchored to the specific piece of hardware. Virtualization breaks the link between location and application. Cloud (at least “public cloud”) further breaks the link between ownership and control.
The key here is that public cloud computing requires us to exert control without ownership of the infrastructure. We can exert control and secure the information through a combination of encryption, contracts with service-level agreements and by (contractually) imposing minimum security standards on the providers. If those are in place, then there is no inherent reason why a cloud computing environment cannot be made secure and compliant.
