Information Week offers an interesting anecdote about a small start-up that had decided to pull back from using a public cloud due to security concerns. The firm itself did not have any issues; it was convinced that customer data would be safe and sound. The problem was that potential clients had issues with the cloud concept. And that doubt became barriers to business. The firm opted for a private co-location arrangement.

The story points to the vexing nature of cloud security. In the magazine's 2010 Cloud GRC Survey of 518 business technology professionals, respondents "are more worried about the cloud leaking information than they are about performance, maturity, vendor lock-in, provider viability, or any other concern." But that hasn't really held adoption of cloud services back. "The benefits, such as lower deployment costs and faster time to market, are just too attractive, particularly in today's business climate of stagnant budgets and staffing uncertainty."

This is really a decent position for vendors to be in. They have a hot service, but one that requires a lot of customer hand-holding. You've got to have all the answers when it comes to cloud security.

For more:
- here's the article

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