Cloud
computing, the role of government in securing cyberspace and a growing
concern over the potential for cyber-warfare dominated conversations at
this year's RSA conference - one of the largest and most important
gatherings of the Internet security industry, held this week in San
Francisco.
Advocates of cloud computing - a term that refers to
storing and sharing an organization's information online - say it holds
the promise of significantly lowering the costs of equipment maintenance
and operation while improving mass deployment of software and updates.
"Cloud
is changing security as we know it. We have the opportunity to put
security into the fabric of computing," said Philippe Courtot, chief
executive officer of on-demand security provider Qualys.
But the
idea of widely adopting and implementing these information management
techniques has been met with different levels of caution.
Melissa
Hathaway, former senior director for cyberspace for the National
Security Council, said the migration toward the cloud is gaining
momentum without having satisfactorily addressed several pressing
concerns. Former National Security Agency technical director Brian Snow
said he does not trust the cloud.
Some of the most cited worries
were online data's vulnerability to cyber-attacks, compliance with
different security and privacy standards depending on data storage
centers' physical location, and government's possible access to
organizations' information through audits and search warrants.
In
one panel discussion, the chief security officers for Nevada, Colorado,
Pennsylvania and California said they were carefully assessing the
risks involved with cloud computing and weighing them against the
cost-cutting benefits for their states.
"Because of the economic
situation, we can't ignore the benefits of the cloud, but we have to
proceed very carefully," said Mark Weatherford, California's chief
information security officer.
Another subject of much
conversation among security professionals and government representatives
was the mutual desire to form more and better public-private sector
partnerships to fight the growing tide of cyberthreats.
Keynote
speeches delivered by cyber-security czar Howard Schmidt, Department of
Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano and FBI Director Robert
Mueller were indicative of the federal government's increased
willingness to partner and share information with the security industry.
What's more, both Napolitano and Mueller even used their talks to
invite security professionals to their ranks.
