Recent studies have shown that more than 60% of IT managers admit to security as the main stumbling block to their integration of cloud computing, with data protection and a perceived lack of regulation being their chief concerns. In another global study by IBM that involved more than 500 IT managers, it showed that 77% of businesses fear that cloud computing will necessitate privacy trade-offs, and 50% feared data breaches. Another 23% fear that cloud computing threatens corporate security. But really, the challenges facing cloud computing can be categorized into three; data protection, user authentication and data breach and damage. Let’s study each in detail.
This is all about access and who accesses the data whether in transit or storage. Since cloud computing is usually done beyond the clients’ firewall, there’s always that fear of putting data ‘out there’. Traditionally, businesses store their data on physical servers in their premises and the hardware would need an on-site access to compromise or breach the data and this has been seen as a deterrent to hacking and illegal access. User authentication is still one of the main fears despite the fact that cloud providers ensure data encryption besides employing necessary safeguards to monitor access.
No company would ever want to expose themselves to any risk concerning their data (in transit or in storage) because the ramifications of this are too great to even imagine. Data that are often closely guarded include both internal and external data that touch on the company and client information respectively. If a company’s security process is called into question, clients will lose confidence in their services and this will affect the overall turn-over, even put the entire company out of business.
There’s a perceived threat to data in cloud because of varied reasons and one of them is fears of data loss, breach or damage. This is one security jitter however that has been counter-checked with cloud data back-ups and multiple server storage. In fact, data in cloud is less prone to breaches and physical damages like fire, floods, etc that are usually a risk in physical servers
Failure to comprehend the whole idea of cloud computing is also proving to be a challenge especially among businesses seeking to use the service for the first time. This is precisely why businesses and organizations are being encouraged to allay perceived security fears and try to exploit the positives of cloud computing.
But even as the fears are sustained across the business setting, professional cloud computing providers are investing colossal amounts of their budgets to implement high security solutions in efforts to lock clients’ resources in high security data centers accessible only to authorized entities.
By John Omwamba
