Cloud Computing and it’s lack of Security

 

For years, I’ve managed to keep all of my registered software on local machines, and in those years, I’ve been able to keep, or distribute freely, everything I’ve created, from web apps to customized databases, to web pages and api’s .. I’ve managed my own security and more often than not, even hosted my own.

Most providers will not allow software created by their customers to be moved off the provider’s platform, (Platform-as-a-Service — PaaS), so why would one even consider developing anything in the cloud? Mostly they will, I think, because they think it’s cool to do, and that would be about it.

Lately though, accountability has been brought up more and more often with regard to “the cloud”. Imagine for a moment, if you will, that you’ve got the VPN configured on your local machine. And via your VPN, you have various people logging in to your machine, using your resources and software, to work on various projects from remote locations. One day you wake up and you find that the security was compromised on your machine. As a result, all of the data has been compromised and on the worst case scenario, all of the 20 different projects, that 20 different people had been working so very hard, was so corrupted that recovery isn’t even an option. This is Cloud Computing .. only on a much smaller scale.

Mafiaboy who, in 2000, took down Websites CNN, Yahoo, E*Trade, Dell, Amazon, and eBay, sums it up nicely when he says;

“widespread adoption of cloud computing is going to make the Internet only more of a hacker haven.”

He also goes on to say this;

“It will be the fall of the Internet as we know it,” … “You’re basically putting everything in one little sandbox .. it’s going to be a lot more easy to access,” ..

According to a poll that was taken by Unisys Corporation, 51 percent cited security and data privacy. Twenty-one percent cited integration of cloud applications with existing systems as a potential barrier.
Security and privacy concerns are the most significant barriers to the adoption of cloud computing among business users, according to the poll.

As a result of certain various security issues, “the cloud”, as it stands today, is just too much of a temptation for the criminal element to resist.

Amazon (AWS) runs all of their operations in the cloud, and it’s ironic that both I, and hundreds, maybe even thousands of webmasters, just like me, have all of Amazon’s known ip ranges blocked as a result of the many abuses that come from their services in the cloud.

Cloud or no cloud. I will serve my own, secure my own, and build my own. I can’t risk losing all or part of my work because I thought it would be “cheaper” to use someone else’s software or infrastructure elsewhere. My work is just too important to be residing on some obscure server somewhere ..