Cloud computing offers enterprise customers a great deal more freedom and flexibility compared to traditional on-premise data centers and software applications. But with this freedom comes much responsibility, according to Microsoft.
As eSecurity Planet reports, CEO Steve Ballmer this week made it clear that Microsoft intends to play a leadership role in protecting data in the cloud, a responsibility he said is derived by virtue of being one of the largest software companies in the world.
Some high-profile gaffes by the likes of AT&T and Google have consumers and policy experts taking a closer look at just how secure these emerging public and private clouds need to be to keep data from falling into the wrong hands.
Managing accountability is made even more complex by the trend towards cloud computing, where privacy information — indeed, any information — may exist almost anywhere, with providers hosting the cloud on thousands of servers located in data centers worldwide.
Online privacy has been a growing concern for businesses, consumers and policymakers for more than a decade, and one that’s becoming even more pressing as users migrate to cloud computing and adopt social networking for communicating with friends and colleagues.
As a result of the explosion in new models for storing and sharing corporate, personal and financial data, the industry needs to take steps to ensure comprehensive accountability, the head of Microsoft’s privacy efforts said Tuesday.
“People care very, very deeply about privacy,” Peter Cullen, Microsoft’s (NASDAQ: MSFT) chief privacy strategist, said in his opening keynote for the Computers, Freedom and Privacy (CFP) conference in San Jose, Calif. “For privacy professionals, the cloud represents the latest evidence that technology will likely always outpace policy.