Another reason I don't like the 'cloud' idea

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

Begin forwarded message:

From: "Ed Gerck, Ph.D." <egerck () nma com>
Date: April 17, 2009 12:05:47 PM EDT
To: dave () farber net
Cc: ip <ip () v2 listbox com>
Subject: Re: [IP] Re: Another reason I don't like the 'cloud' idea

Dave and IP'ers:

Cloud-computing (aka SaaS) customers are, as the bottom line,  
outsourcing risk into a situation that they cannot control.

For example, even if the customer areas are encrypted, the keys to  
decrypt the customer areas are potentially available not only to  
anyone compromising the server but also to the organizations and  
people regularly involved in running and maintaining the server.  
Further, compromise in one area of an SaaS system may compromise data  
of more than one customer.
The importance of this vulnerability was highlighted in Q3/2007 by a  
phishing and spoofing attack reportedly targeting salesforce.com (a  
well-known cloud computing provider) customers' data in Salesforce's  
servers.

  In one case, a phishing email purporting to be from the U.S. Federal
  Trade Commission was sent to a salesforce.com customer. The email
  contained business information about a company's client, that the
  public at large would not know, which was available in the
  customer's area at the salesforce.com servers. The email asked for
  more information about the customer's client. In other cases,
  customers received bogus emails that looked like salesforce.com
  invoices, with virus and key-logging software that could completely
  compromise the recipient's security and privacy -- including
  passwords typed by the user

With cloud computing as it is done today, the customers' data become  
attack targets, with mounting risks as the number of customers  
increase in the multi-tenant architecture where servers hold an "egg  
nest" with data belonging to many different customers.

Solutions exist, to different degrees. One solution, which I helped  
develop and is coming to market after years of testing, can prevent  
data theft even if the attackers physically remove all servers and  
devices providing the cloud computing service. The requirement to  
withstand a  physical removal attack, where the attackers can try to  
break the protection in their own time and without multiple-attempt  
blocks, is important not because it may be be carried out physically  
with high probability but because online "owning" of servers can be as  
extensive as physically possessing the servers.

Cheers,
Ed Gerck
ed () gerck com




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