Making the Cloud Secure: Cirrus or Cumulonimbus?

Abstract

We build on our experience of the commercial Information and Communications Technology (ICT) environment, market data from respected organisations and the technical literature; to examine how the sophistication offered by the cloud impacts approaches to defending information from attack by malignant actors. The cloud provides a networked and distributed approach to computing, using commercial models that are congruent with the outsourced principle of more efficient use of technology resources. The model however creates more complexity and more interfaces, which will in turn impact the approach needed to protect facilities against attack.