Page 181 - How Cloud Computing Is Transforming Business and Why You Cant Afford to Be Left Behind

D ANGERS ABOUND: SECURITY IN THE C L O UD

users—there would be far less interest in cloud computing
today than it currently enjoys.
Software as a service has many integration points with ap-
plications back in the corporate infrastructure and offers the
option of customers building custom objects that work with
the supplier’s application set. A customer of SaaS must be aware

of what security precautions his vendor has built into the SaaS
services. He needs to establish for himself that the data gen-
erated in SaaS applications is securely stored in the SaaS en-
vironment and remains transferable to him on demand. In
extending SaaS applications with custom objects, the customer
must adhere to the programming and security conventions
demanded by the vendor’s computing platform or risk dis-

rupting the vendor’s cloud.
When Salesforce.com scrutinizes a customer submission,
it is with an eye to strict adherence to its stated allowances. The
customer must be “especially concerned about the software
development lifecycle” of its SaaS supplier, says the Cloud
Security Alliance. That is, is the supplier acting in a timely
manner to deal with new threats and staying abreast of the
state of the art in protecting the service from hackers?
As we have seen, each form of cloud computing carries its

own risks, options, and rewards. In this young industry, it’s still
caveat emptor, but at the same time early adopters will be re-
warded with experience in how cloud computing works and
where competitive advantage might flow from its cost struc-
ture. The current shallow trust boundaries within the cloud
are going to be pushed back to allow more and more trusted
interactions.

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