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If our Gov't is leading the charge in the cloud, is it really secure? If not secure enough today, how soon before it's secure enough?
Who Exactly Owns Your Data in the Cloud? – GigaOM
Between Gmail, Google Docs, Zoho, Facebook, Basecamp, Flickr, Twitter and countless other applications, much of our data now sits in the cloud. But few people ever stop to think about where that data is stored or how it might be accessed or used. So who exactly does own your data and who has access to it? And how much privacy can you expect?
These questions get all the more complex because many web application providers are using cloud services from the likes of Amazon and Google, which means data doesn’t necessarily sit on the app provider’s servers. Additionally, there is an increased use of APIs to facilitate greater interoperability among web apps, meaning that your data may be used in many ways that you don’t expect. How can you learn more about the rights you have to your data, as well as the rights others have to it? GigaOM Pro (subscription required) this week has a great report by Simon Mackie that tackles these questions. The report delves into two main issues:
Data Privacy. When it comes to the U.S., the Fourth Amendment states that people should “be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures…” But web-hosted applications and cloud services are too new for the courts to have been able to provide far-reaching guidance on data privacy online. Issues related to data privacy get even more complex when data is stored outside of the country. Some cloud services, such as Amazon’s, let you choose the region in which you want your data stored; and some, such as Google’s, don’t.
Data Security. There are any number of threats to your data online. Your application or service provider could go belly up, you could fall prey to hackers or you could simply be locked out of your account. The good news is that data portability and security policies are being scrutinized closely by several organizations, and there are steps you can take to reduce your vulnerability in the could.
For much more on these and other issues pertaining to your data and the cloud, see Simon’s full report.
via gigaom.com
Cisco buys Rohati Systems | NetworkWorld.com Community
Our colleague Ellen Messmer has heard some scuttlebutt concerning Cisco acquiring Rohati Systems. She notes that, while neither Cisco nor Rohati have officially commented on such a deal, a high-level insider has confirmed that it has happened (and that the employees are actually over at Cisco now.)
The acquisition of start-up Rohati Systems would make sense. Rohati was started by former Cisco engineers in 2008 to introduce an access-control device that’s an alternative to the traditional firewall.
(See Cisco Defectors for a rundown of what other former Cisco employees are up to these days).
Rohati’s Transaction Networking System helps establish entitlements by controlling through its Layer 7 access method who has what access to data on a per-transaction basis using context-specific attributes. Rohati has also been working on a version of its technology for use in cloud-based environments.
As we know, Cisco spent 2009 slowly building an image of itself as a cloud security vendor, referring to cloud security as a "nightmare" and then introducing enhancements to WebEx and the ASR line to tackle the issue. So from this perspective, Cisco's interest in Rohati also makes sense.
Rohati is based in Sunnyvale, Calif. and its president, CEO and co-founder is Prashant Gandhi. He is reportedly planning on staying on with Cisco.
Posted by Cisco Subnet editor Julie Bort:
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- Cisco invests in ad counter
- Bids start for Nortel VoIP but Cisco's all set
- ACLs; A Service Providers Best Practice on your LAN
- Top 5 Security Breaches of 2009
- What is the most significant technology development of 2009?
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