Cloud Security

Putting Threats of Cloud Computing in Perspective

David Matthews, Deputy Chief Information Security Officer, City of Seattle

The hack on Gmail e-mail accounts of activists promoting human rights emanating from China is a reminder to government officials about the security and privacy threats cloud computing - Gmail is a cloud computing offering from Google - pose.

"It makes us more aware of some of the things we need to be doing as we need to do to be ready to go into cloud computing," David Matthews, Seattle deputy chief information security officer, said in an interview with GovInfoSecurity.com. "It was kind of a wake up call, in a way, for all of us to really think about this is (as) security as usual. We really need to pay attention to our security and our issues and be aware of what we're jumping into when we jump into cloud computing and be ready for it."

Matthews, who is a member of the American Bar Association's Science and Technology Committee, which has been conversing about the legal and privacy concerns of cloud computing the past few years, spoke with GovInfoSecurity.com's Eric Chabrow.

In the interview, Matthews also addressed the:

Pros and cons of cloud computing for government agencies.
Pressures being mounted by government officials to exploit the financial benefits of cloud computing.
Importance of contracts with cloud computing service providers, especially in defining data ownership and auditing.

Further reading:

Interview with David Matthews: Creativity Replaces Dollars to Safeguard IT




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