Cloud security outweighs in-house security according to Google

Google’s Enterprize Director of Security Eran Feigenbaum has stated that using the cloud is a secure option for businesses as compared to current infrastructure. Feigenbaum, was speaking in Sydney at the Australian Information Security Association’s National Conference on October 16, 2012.

Feigenbaum spoke about how using the cloud is cheaper in terms of monetary costs, as compared to on-site software and hardware, but it can be considered to be more secure. Although admitting that different companies require different approaches to cloud computing security, he re-iterated that using cloud computing is a safer alternative.

The security expert did mention that there could be a learning curve involved in moving to the cloud, but it would not be anything to be too concerned about. He drew out a few guidelines as to what could be done to make the transition easier, such as including clauses in the contract to assure that the service provider will inform the client in case there is a security issue, along with details of the same.

Eran explored the possibility of putting in place an incident coordinator, so that in case of any incident, security related or otherwise, the clients would be able to have someone who has access to engineers, PR, customer support and so forth. The incident coordinator would be wholly in charge of managing incidents brought about on the cloud computing front and would deal with the service provider directly. In this manner, organizations would be able to put together lessons-learned and take them to the cloud provider to discuss what action could be taken in an event of a breach.