December 24, 2009, 7:22 am 

Is Our Data Too Vulnerable in the Cloud?

By NICK BILTON

technologyreview.com Technology Review’s latest ‘Security in the Ether’ article

The January issue of Technology Review features an important article discussing whether cloud computing is secure enough for broad public use.

“Security in the Ether,” by David Talbot, brings to light some of the serious technology concerns from cloud based applications including Gmail, Twitter and Facebook. Mr. Talbot interviews security and cloud experts, some who agree that our data and information is too vulnerable in the cloud, and the standards for business and public use are not secure enough. Talbot writes:

Cloud computing actually poses several separate but related security risks. Not only could stored data be stolen by hackers or lost to breakdowns, but a cloud provider might mishandle data — or be forced to give it up in response to a subpoena.

Mr. Talbot tells one story of three computer scientists at the University of California, San Diego, and M.I.T. who hired some virtual machines from Amazon’s EC2 cloud computing service, and although they didn’t steal any data, they illustrated the ease with which an experienced programmer could gain access to other user’s data and servers.

As my colleague Jenna Wortham and I reported last week, the latest Twitter hacking debacle was a result of a simple password breach through a Twitter employee’s Gmail account. While reporting this story we heard concerns from numerous security experts who repeatedly said that single password systems for cloud applications don’t allow enough security for business and the public.