ISO 27018: data protection standards for the cloud 

In 2014, the International Standards Organization (ISO) added to its family of information security standards when it published ISO/IEC 27018, a code of practice that sets forth standards for the protection of personally identifiable information (PII) in the public cloud.
ISO/IEC 27018 provides best practices for public cloud service providers and establishes a common set of control objectives, controls, and guidelines for implementing measures to protect PII.


The standard requires cloud service providers to, among other things:

• only process PII in accordance with the customer’s instructions;
• only process PII for marketing or advertising purposes with the customer’s express consent;
• implement tools that enable customers to comply with PII access, removal and correction requirements;
• disclose to the customer the identity of subcontractors and any possible locations where PII may be processed;
• ensure that personnel who have access to PII enter into confidentiality agreements and receive appropriate training;
• only disclose PII to governmental or regulatory authorities when legally obligated to do so; and
• assist customers in complying with notification obligations in the event of a security breach.

The standard may be of particular interest to customers in highly regulated industries, such as financial services and insurance, since compliance by a customer’s service providers with the standard may provide a better quality of assurance to the customer’s regulators. 

By Michael Decicco 

 

Americans More Concerned With Online Privacy

Increasing Number of Americans Concerned With Online Privacy

 

Pros in the industry, techies and home consumers alike have become increasingly concerned with online privacy over the past few years. This is mainly due to information of the NSA spying programs being made available to the American public. More and more Americans are becoming aware, even if a small few are actually ready to do something about it. The NSA doesn’t just spy on Americans, they spy on most countries in the developed world.

From Yahoo! Finance:

“People are mainly concerned with companies sharing their personal information with other companies. But a growing number listed NSA’s PRISM as a reason for their increased concern about online security.”

What do you think? Are you okay with the NSA gathering data on citizens? Are you more concerned about companies sharing your info, or governments gathering data? Let us know what you think about this issue.

By Jason Sander (www.cloudtweaks.com)

 

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Cloud Security Benefits for SMBs in US

Original picture at www.cloudcomputing-news.net!

How is Cloud Computing Helping in the Fight against Ebola?

Ebola is a serious and frequently fatal disease for which there currently aren’t any licensed treatments or vaccines. The current outbreak of the virus is mainly affecting three countries in West Africa including Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone. There have already been over nine thousand nine hundred and thirty six reported cases and more than four thousand eight hundred deaths caused by the virus, making it the largest known outbreak of Ebola to date
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Fighting Ebola with cloud computing

It has recently been reported that a number of organisations are helping to fight against Ebola by using cloud computing. One of these organisations is Microsoft. The company has recently announced it will be joining the fight against the Ebola outbreak by pledging free cloud computing and research applications to medical researchers working on eradicating the deadly virus.

Microsoft’s Azure Cloud Computing Service

Microsoft is making its Azure cloud computing service available to medical workers so that they can gain access to the necessary require for vaccine discovery. The software company also says that its own researchers have built a number of tools that medical researchers may find useful.
Azure is the name of the company’s cloud-computing platform, which is made up of a group of data centres that allow users to access large amounts of information and computer power from any location, using the internet.

Essentially, Microsoft will be handing out grants to provide successful applicants with Azure’s cloud computing processing power, so they have easier access to the healthcare and research services they require. In order to gain access to the system, applicants must be associated with an academic institution and must submit a proposal explaining how they intend to use the service.

Streamlining the Ebola Research Process

With growing concerns about the deadly disease spreading, using cloud computing is a great idea, as it helps to streamline the research process and make it more affordable for those on tight budgets. Access to the company’s vast hub of data centres will also help researchers to analyse and store large sets of data, which would otherwise be difficult on local computers and networks.

It’s not just Microsoft that is using their cloud computing technology to fight against Ebola; IBM is too. The computer hardware company is using its cloud-based ‘super computers’ to aggregate and correlate information about the disease and people’s concerns. This information is then being shared with so they are able to share it with healthcare workers and medical professionals to ensure the right information is put out there.

Use of Cloud Based Technology to Track Ebola Outbreaks

IBM has also launched a new system using mobile and cloud-based technology to help identify locations where cases of the disease are on the rise. This information is allowing aid organisations and governments to effectively track the spread of the virus and target areas in need of more health care workers and medical supplies.

The mobile technology and cloud computing systems are currently being used in Sierra Leone, a West African country that has experienced one of the highest numbers of cases of Ebola. The system requires citizens to report any suspected outbreaks of Ebola (or related concerns) by sending a text message or phoning IBM’s new research laboratory in Africa. IBM’s cloud computing experts then add the information to a heat map to highlight emerging issues.
Samsung has also pledged to donate 3000 smartphones to Ebola medical clinics in the three worst affected West African countries. Using these smartphones, medics can access the UN’s Smart Pro Health application. This application is designed to help health workers diagnose, quarantine and treat cases of Ebola.
We think it is great to see some of the world’s biggest companies using new technologies like cloud computing to help battle against such a fatal and frightening disease and hope that it is able to make a positive difference.

More info at www.cloudindustrynews.com 

 

Aggressive Growth in Cloud Security Software Market Forecast Globally to 2019

ReportsnReports.com adds Global Cloud Security Software Market 2015-2019 research report of 79 pages to its collection of cloud sector data under Information Technology industry intelligence in its research and data library.

The Global Cloud Security Software market is forecast to grow at 48.46% CAGR over the period 2014-2019 based on the fact that cloud security software eliminates connection-related expenditures because it is offered with a wide variety of connection options. Traditional on-site security software has a high total cost of ownership, as it includes high upfront software license and software implementation costs, coupled with high maintenance costs. Cloud security software circumvents these expenses, since cloud vendors are responsible for the implementation, maintenance, updates, and backup of software, thereby reducing the need for internal IT administration. Complete research is available at http://www.reportsnreports.com/reports/344484-global-cloud-security-software-market-2015-2019.html.

This report covers the present scenario and the growth prospects of the Global Cloud Security Software market for the period 2015-2019. To calculate the market size, the report considers revenue generated from the sales of cloud security software solutions. The report consolidates the revenues generated from geographical areas of Americas, APAC and EMEA. This research draws attention towards growing partnerships between cloud service providers (CSPs) and security solution providers. As the market matures, cloud security has become an integral part of cloud services, thereby requiring CSPs to provide cloud security along with their regular cloud services.

Cloud security is projected to become a major buying criterion for customers over the forecast period, which will lead to an increase in the number of partnerships among CSPs and security solution providers. The Global Cloud Security Software Market 2015-2019 report has been prepared based on an in-depth market analysis with inputs from industry experts. The report covers the Americas, and the APAC and EMEA regions; it also covers the Global Cloud Security Software market landscape and its growth prospects over the coming years. The report includes a discussion of the key vendors operating in this market.

 

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Top Ten Strategic Tech Trends for 2015-2020

Marketing Profs has put out an interesting Infographic discovered via Lireo Designs on their take on tech’s hottest trends for this year. They make some solid points for each trend.

 

What changes will technology bring in 2015? As technology evolves, staying on top of the current technology trends is critical for businesses to stay competitive and successful.
In this infographic from Needa Shredder, you’ll get an overview of the top technology trends for 2015.
In addition, the infographic offers predictions for technology changes in the workplace over the next five years that impact organization structure, business operation costs, and customer insight investment.
I wasn’t surprised to see computing everywhere and the Internet of Things at the top of the list. One of the predictions I found fascinating was the increased life expectancy for people in the developed world, due to wireless health monitoring technology.

1. Computing everywhere: “Within the next 5 years, users of smart phones, smart TVs, and smart cars will practically double.”
This is probably the trend that makes the most sense. Sales of these types of devices should only continue to increase.
2. The Internet of Things
3. 3D Printing
4. Advanced, pervasive and invisible analytics
5. Context-rich systems
6. Smart machines
7. Cloud/client computing
Many businesses are already moving their entire process to the cloud. This trend will only improve.
8. Software-defined applications and infrastructure
9. Web-scale IT (Information Technology)
10. Risk-based security and self protection

See the original picture here! 

Cloud Infographic – Human Error And Data Breaches

 

Anthem data breach cost likely to smash $100 million barrier

The company's cyber insurance policy is likely to be exhausted following the theft of up to 80 million records.

Last week, Anthem confirmed a security breach which resulted in the exposure and theft of up to 80 million records. Using a stolen password, hackers were able to break into a database which contained the personal information of former and current clients, as well as employees.

Learn more at www.zdnet.com! 

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3 dominant trends that will drive cloud security in the coming years

Nowadays, you don’t have to be a security expert to recognise just how much the threat landscape has evolved in the last ten years – you only have to read the all-too-frequent headlines about the latest data breach.

2014 saw significant change in the IT security industry – the cloud became real as large enterprises furthered adoption. Changes in infrastructure environments require changes in how organisations protect against threats. CIOs are now moving their focus from preventing a breach to accepting it and the requirement for fast detection, analytics and identifying vulnerabilities before they are exploited.

Here are the dominant trends that are shaping cloud security for the next few years.

1. Security designed for the cloud – using the DevOps model

Companies should be demanding security solutions that are specifically designed for the cloud, programmable and highly automated, and able to deploy and auto-scale with minimal effort.

2. Big data security analytics

Conducting big data security analytics is not sufficient on its own; we have to be able to incorporate threat intelligence which, in turn, has to be specifically tuned for cloud environments. Integration between cloud and security providers is crucial. You not only have to build these cloud security technologies from the ground up, but you have to make sure that the cloud provider shares enough access to their underlying infrastructure with the providers in order to make these things work.

3. Cloud threat intelligence

Threat intelligence, one of the most active fields of research in security today, includes context, indicators of compromise, actionable data about malicious actors and identifying further threats with high fidelity. Threat intelligence augments security analytics for both pre and post compromise by providing insight into malicious IPs, domains, urls, new attack models, tools and techniques.

Cloud computing has driven us into a new era of data security, not only in terms of the challenges and risks associated with cybercrime, but also the tools available to protect both data and IT infrastructure, wherever it is located. How we create and deliver applications, how we log and analyse security incidents at scale, how we derive context and deep threat intelligence, and how the security industry and customers start to share cloud threat intelligence is going to drive the security market focus for the next few years.

Learm more at www.information-age.com! 

Posted by Ben Ros