Survey: Security Top Concern for Software Development in the Cloud
March 21, 2016
By Joe Rizzo
Contributing Writer
When you ask management in different departments what their major concern with regards to new software is, you’ll get a variety of answers. Reliability, keeping costs down, and easy-to-install and use are just a few of the answers, but the one that always tops the list is security. If the IT department cannot provide a secure environment, the software will never be used to its full potential.
A decent number of people still do not fully understand exactly how cloud services work, however; they all expect that their information will be secure, saved and kept away from prying eyes. This is why cloud security needs to be part of the software-development lifecycle. Companies need to have the comfort level that will allow them to store their corporate data on a computer that is not in their datacenter.
Over the years many surveys have been taken and the No. 1 concern is almost always security. The cloud is no exception, as a recent survey conducted by Information Security shows that at least 90 percent of the respondents felt that security was the biggest factor preventing organizations from moving to the cloud.
Cloud-based providers house information from several different organizations, which means that if a cyberattack happens, the potential is there to gather information from all of the hosted companies. Cyberattacks, like unauthorized access, or the installation of malicious software, seem to be happening a lot more frequently lately. This has raised major concerns and an awareness of just how important security is at every level.
One of the most reliable and efficient solutions is to maintain a security department, one that is responsible for monitoring any unapproved access. This gives the cloud provider the ability to stop an attack and possibly track down the source. The important thing is that the housed information would be safe from breaches.
While options such as security as a service, a business model in which a large service provider integrates their security services into a corporate infrastructure on a subscription basis, is an option for smaller firms, it seems that a better method would be to integrate security with all stages of the Software Development Lifecycle (SDLC).
As more information continues to move to the cloud, the concern to keep it safe grows exponentially. There have already been reports where cloud environments have been compromised and once that happens there is always the possibility that the cyber attacker will have left a back door, giving them the option of connecting to the server at any future time. Security inclusions at the SDLC stage will be reinforced by the provider’s own security measures, offering a higher level of confidence to their clients.
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