How Secure is Cloud

Editor's Notes

• #4: Drew Huston, founder and CEO of Dropbox, has been given the title of Internet entrepreneur for his achievements in his field. The creation story of the company, Huston claims, was based upon an idea that came to him after having had to deal with constantly forgetting his USB flash drive during his studies at MIT. While he was a student he found an abundance of problems with already existing storage services and set out to solve this problem for himself before realizing that his solution could benefit others as well. In 2007, he and his co-founder Arash Ferdowsi were able to secure funding to begin the development of the program, and by 2008 they were ready to launch. Dropbox had an enormous success rate, and, after officially being introduced at TechCrunch50, broke records gaining 50 million users in just under three years. By the end of 2013 Dropbox had gained over 200 million users.
• #5: Common Cloud Examples The lines between local computing and cloud computing sometimes get very, very blurry. That's because the cloud is part of almost everything on our computers these days. You can easily have a local piece of software (for instance, Microsoft Office 365) that utilizes a form of cloud computing for storage (Microsoft OneDrive). That said, Microsoft also offers a set of Web apps, now called Office Online, that are online-only versions of Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and OneNote accessed via your Web browser without installing anything. That makes them a version of cloud computing (Web-based=cloud). Some other major examples of cloud computing you're probably using: Google Drive: This is a pure cloud computing service, with all the storage found online so it can work with the cloud apps: Google Docs, Google Sheets, and Google Slides. Drive is also available on more than just desktop computers; you can use it on tablets like the iPad$228.00 at Gazelle Store or on smartphones, and there are separate apps for Docs and Sheets, as well. In fact, most of Google's services could be considered cloud computing: Gmail, Google Calendar, Google Maps, and so on. Apple iCloud: Apple's cloud service is primarily used for online storage, backup, and synchronization of your mail, contacts, calendar, and more. All the data you need is available to you on your iOS, Mac OS, or Windows device (Windows users have to install the iCloud control panel). Naturally, Apple won't be outdone by rivals: it offers cloud-based versions of its word processor (Pages), spreadsheet (Numbers), and presentations (Keynote) for use by any iCloud subscriber. iCloud is also the place iPhone users go to utilze the Find My iPhone feature that's all important when the phone goes missing. Amazon Cloud Drive: Storage at the big retailer is mainly for music, preferably MP3s that you purchase from Amazon, and images—if you have Amazon Prime, you get unlimited image storage. The Cloud Drive also holds anything you buy for the Kindle. It's essentially storage for anything digital you'd buy from Amazon, baked into all its products and services. Hybrid services like Box, Dropbox, and SugarSync all say they work in the cloud because they store a synced version of your files online, but most also sync those files with local storage. Synchronization to allow all your devices to access the same data is a cornerstone of the cloud computing experience, even if you do access the file locally. Likewise, it's considered cloud computing if you have a community of people with separate devices that need the same data synched, be it for work collaboration projects or just to keep the family in sync. For more, check out the The Best Cloud Storage Services for 2015.
• #6: Google Chrome Web browser into an operating system. With a Chromebook, most everything you do is online: apps, media, and storage are all in the cloud.  ChromeBits, smaller-than-a-candy-bar drives (pictured) that turn any display with an HDMI port into a usable computer running Chrome OS. Of course, you may be wondering what happens if you're somewhere without a connection and you need to access your data. This is currently one of the biggest complaints about Chrome OS, although its offline functionality is expanding. The Chromebook isn't the first product to try this approach. So-called "dumb-terminals" that lack local storage and connect to a local server or mainframe go back decades. The first Internet-only product attempts included the old NIC (New Internet Computer), the Netpliance iOpener, and the disastrous 3Com Audrey. You could argue they all debuted well before their time—dial-up speeds of the 1990s had training wheels compared to the accelerated broadband Internet connections of today. That's why many would argue that cloud computing works at all: the connection to the Internet is as fast as the connection to the hard drive. Or is it?
• #9: Management: They should to some test on their updates whether these update are working or not. No further testing is done these updates making them unable to detect problems on their updates. Organizations quality department: The problem is the sign that this department are not working properly. Their main task is to ensure the entire company products are high in quality or at least in a shape. Technology: They should keep the technology used up to date. New viruses always had undergone evolution in order to become undetectable and more harmful.
• #10: Cloud computing is considered as one of the secure platform to perform the online activity if the correct vendor is selected. Although there are some limitation and the security weakness has been identified in last few years but the technology experts are predicting that it is going to be a most reliable platform in the future.
• #12: General Server Risks: Denial of Service (DoS) Being of the latter is obviously always an issue for servers Service and Account Hijacking: At this point in its development, the cloud is seriously at risk for service and account hijacking PRISM Scandal: In June 2013 Edward Snowden revealed that the National Security Agency (NSA) has been collecting enormous amounts of communication and search data from internet companies such as Microsoft, Yahoo, Google
• #13: More Clear and Transparent: The cloud provider’s facility, their rules and regulations, the safety issues are clearer than previous. So it is become a matter of trust for the users. Possible Defense: Cloud security alliance (CSA) is used to prevent organizations to disallow users and services from sharing account credentials between themselves. So it is now more reliable. More Expensive Security: Although one of the objective of the cloud computing is to provide the services at cheaper price so that user are more encouraged to use the cloud but the vendors identified that with cheap security system there are some possibility of data theft so they built more expensive security system because sometime data are more valuable than vendors profit
• #14: I would want to know if they were a public company, what kind of encrypt software is being used, can I choose the center were my data would be stored, and if they meet current compliance requirement. Issues of privacy would be the main topic to consider. Any and all date being stored on the cloud is sensitive and should be well take care of. Additionally, overall security of the information should be provided. I would want to know how they plan on providing the utmost security and also locations of their servers. Having the servers based in the United States would be more appealing than having them based outside of the nation.
• #15: If my company data storage needs were so huge and it was clear that using this service provided large economical savings and provided as good if not better security protection than was already in place, then yes I would use the service. However if the company data was highly sensitive (like the federal government top secret Intel then I would not be apt to use this service. I believe there will never be a %100 secure information system as long as people are alive. Evil exist and people possess it and are driven by it for self-serving needs and will always figure out ways to crack any system to do damage. I would only entrust my corporate systems to a cloud computing provider if the company data was not highly sensitive. There can never be a 100% secure cloud computing service regardless of the encryption software used. If my corporate had a huge need for data storage and cloud computing service meant large economical savings, then I would go for it.