Cloud Computing

Every time you bring up the term “security” in reference to cloud computing, there is a visceral reaction. Security is the issue on the tip of everyone’s tongue but some afraid to bring it up – as they don’t want to seem uninformed.

It is the unspoken drawback of cloud computing and it hovers, quietly, like some invisible, floating pink elephant in the room.

That’s because security is an important consideration with cloud computing, yes. And nobody has it completely figured out.

Silicon Republic brings up the case of the City of Los Angeles, which has "delayed the adoption of Google’s (News - Alert) cloud-based email and productivity tools. The $7.25 million project would have involved migrating more than 30,000 city employees to the new infrastructure. Now it’s nine months behind schedule and security concerns are being given as the reason." 

This is not an isolated incident, as Silicon Republic says: "A recent survey of 500 IT decision makers, conducted for Mimecast, found 74 percent saying a trade-off between cost and security exists, while 62 percent said storing data on servers located outside the company always carries a risk."

Once upon a time, Calvin Azuri reported that a joint announcement regarding the development of a new advanced encryption or fine-grained encryption scheme has been announced by Nippon Telegraph and Telephone Corporation or NTT (News - Alert) and Mitsubishi Electric Corporation:

"The security risks in cloud computing can be potentially solved by this fine-grained encryption scheme. The most advanced logic in the encryption-decryption mechanism is achieved by this new encryption scheme. Sophisticated and fine-grained data transmission/access control is therefore enabled."

The idea developed by NTT and Mitsubishi (News - Alert) Electric "has the most advanced logic as an encryption-decryption mechanism," Azuri wrote, adding that a mathematical approach called the "dual pairing vector spaces” has been used to develop this scheme.

This means "highly confidential information can be maintained by the network users in an encrypted form even in cloud computing environments. Cloud computing applications can therefore be expanded to fields where they could previously not be applied with this achievement."