The House Committee on Homeland Security held a hearing last week on Cybersecurity, Infrastructure Protection, and Security Technologies “Witnesses testified about cloud computing and its implications for homeland security. Among the topics they addressed were risk assessment, the Obama administration’s Cloud First Policy, and preparations at the Department of Homeland Security to switch to cloud computing.”
The session addressed the inevitability of cloud adoption by government agencies, a need that is increasingly acute due to budget cuts and agency downsizing. The Federal Risk and Authorization Management Program (FedRAMP) has been established to provide a standard approach to Assessing and Authorizing (A&A) cloud computing services and products.
Security is a valid concern that needs to be addressed. But the cloud is the future as pointed out by Tim Brown, VP of CA Associates: “If we don’t embrace the cloud we will be out of business.” Mr. Brown went on to observe that as cloud providers, we need to ‘trust and verify’ but the cloud is a fact of life.
Security is a major concern, but is cloud-based security the main security risk? You might be surprised at the answer.
