Re: Bruce Schneier on Google Apps. Do you trust Google?

["Ali, Saqib" <docbook.xml () gmail com>]

Hi Stephen,

1) You can always use 2-factor authentication to mitigate the risk of
compromised static passwords.

2) As for legal concerns, can you please elaborate on them. Are you
referring to the Safe Harbour Act for PII and Habeas Data in South
America? I would like to understand the specific legal issues with
storing information in the Cloud.

3) Documentation process for Chain of Custody will not change (AFAIK).
Once you get a e-discovery request or learn that a lawsuit has been
filed, you can retrieve the required data from SaaS provider, and then
proceed with the investigation.

Thanks
Saqib


On Tue, Jul 28, 2009 at 4:33 AM, Stephen
Mullins<steve.mullins.work () gmail com> wrote:
> you'll have employees with weak easily brutable passwords or
> losing their accounts to "secret questions" that their 10 year old
> could answer and use to "hack" their accounts.


> Then you have the fact that it injects all sorts of legal concerns for
> entities outside of the U.S. should the "cloud provider" be based in
> the U.S., or vice versa.




> A company such as Google providing web apps or email has no
> obligations to you whatsoever and their user agreement spells that out
> plainly.
>
> It's not even worth pointing out the other flaws with this concept of
> "enhanced security via cloud computing."  The fact is that placing
> data completely outside of your control in some kind of "cloud" is
> incompatible with real security.  No chain of custody, no ability to
> audit the data, etc.
>
> Steve Mullins
>
> On Mon, Jul 27, 2009 at 12:11 PM, Ali, Saqib<docbook.xml () gmail com> wrote:
> > "Security is about who you trust," Schneier said. "Do you trust Google
> > more than your sysadmin? Do you trust Google Docs more than Microsoft
> > Office?"
> >
> > "Trust is social," he said. "It's not technical."
> >
> > Read more:
> > http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/technology/2009/07/security-expert-on-google-apps-is-google-trustworthy.html
> >
> > I trust that a Google Employee, whose sole function is to maintain the
> > system, will ensure that the system is secure, patched and up-to-date.
> > It is simply about Reputational risk. Reputational risk (damage to an
> > organization through loss of its reputation or standing), can arise as
> > a consequence of operational failures. Every company understands
> > reputational risk, particularly businesses who regard their brand as
> > one of their most critical assets. Google is one of them. They have a
> > reputation to maintain.
> >
> > Note: I posted the following as a comment to the aforementioned
> > latimes blogpost, so it may be a repeat for some folks.
> >
> > NIST just published a working draft of the Cloud Computing Security
> > presentation. Some of the Security Advantages mentioned in the
> > presentation are:
> >
> >  1. Shifting public data to a external cloud reduces the exposure of
> > the internal sensitive data
> >  2. Cloud homogeneity makes security auditing/testing simpler
> >  3. Clouds enable automated security management
> >  4. Redundancy / Disaster Recovery
> >  5. Data Fragmentation and Dispersal
> >  6. Dedicated Security Team
> >  7. Greater Investment in Security Infrastructure
> >  8. Fault Tolerance and Reliability
> >  9. Greater Resiliency
> >  10. Hypervisor Protection Against Network Attacks
> >  11. Possible Reduction of C&A Activities (Access to Pre-Accredited Clouds)
> >  12. Simplification of Compliance Analysis
> >  13. Data Held by Unbiased Party (cloud vendor assertion)
> >  14. Low-Cost Disaster Recovery and Data Storage Solutions
> >  15. On-Demand Security Controls
> >  16. Real-Time Detection of System Tampering
> >  17. Rapid Re-Constitution of Services
> >  18. Advanced Honeynet Capabilities
> >
> > I understand that these will depend on the actual implementation. It
> > usually does for everything. For e.g. you can create world's most
> > secure cipher, but the poor implementation is usually the weakest
> > link.
> >
> > But in theory, if cloud services are implemented properly, I think
> > NIST's list of advantages hold true.
> >
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