Executives unsure of the viability of cloud computing need look no further than the criminal fraternity for a ringing endorsement of the technology, according to a security expert.
Cloud computing has been enthusiastically taken up by criminals for a range of activities, Rik Ferguson, senior security adviser at security firm Trend Micro, told delegates at a Westminster eForum on Wednesday.
"We already see customers of Google, customers of Amazon, who are criminals and who use those services, among others, to run command-and-control services for botnets, to launch spam campaigns and to host phishing websites. They see the power, the scalability, the availability and, for them, the anonymity that is possible through cloud services and they are using it to its fullest extent."
He said organisations need to rethink their security models, which have traditionally been "outside-in" and focused on stopping intruders entering networks. "When we become consumers of cloud we have to change the way we think and focus on inside-out security," he said.
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