Shift to cloud, mobile devices poses security threat for businesses

Contributed by Roumiana Deltcheva (Tuesday, June 01, 2010) | Category : Email security

With enterprises increasingly employing cloud computing and their employees shifting toward mobile devices to stay connected to work outside of the office, the potential for compromised security is increasing, CXO Today reports.

While these options give employees the potential to work while out of the office, fewer security measures are available to regulate usage and compliance.

One security expert stated that while access to unlimited information is empowering, it can easily promote rogue business processes that then violate regulations and result in the loss of sensitive data.

In addition to cloud computing and mobile devices, companies that employ messenger services like Google Talk or AOL Instant Messenger are also susceptible to losing sensitive data. Facebook and Orkut are other sites with services that businesses have found problematic regarding security.

Furthermore, data protection becomes a sticky issue in the cloud, because organizations are often unaware of where providers keep their servers. Yale University recently postponed its migration to Google Apps for this reason.