Top Threat To Cloud Computing

It seems as if every business and IT executive that I talk to lately literally has their “head in the clouds.” Every conversation about current or impending strategies for information assets almost universally contains some mention of a public, private or hybrid cloud deployment. A more interesting observation of these conversations is that the lure of liberating ourselves from the burden of managing applications and data shouldn’t mean we stop having high expectations about how those applications and data are managed. It is certainly not a stretch to say that cloud computing is the current IT trend du jour. You can not look to a single IT publication, website or conference without being bombarded with mounds of marketing dribble from every stage of viability: cloud-native to basic cloud-washed. Unfortunately, just moving infrastructure and/or applications into public or private clouds doesn't necessarily make you more secure, compliance or risk-free. What is prevalent time and time again is the weakest link to any information technology security and that is the human element. According to the Cloud Security Alliance's Top Threats To Cloud Computing V1.0, " As organizations adopt cloud services, the human element takes on an even more profound importance. It is critical therefore that consumers of cloud services understand what providers are doing to detect and defend against the malicious insider threat."