Lots of companies and home users “have their head in the clouds” moving their services, servers and data to the cloud without realizing they are using the cloud since a decade already and they have never given any thought about security of using services from the cloud. Even now, with financial incentives, they do not consider or look at the security implications at all.
Where does a network stop these days? Where does the business network stop? This is not easily definable anymore. Today, networks lacks clear crisp boundaries and it becomes more and more difficult to define what the real inside and outside of the corporate network is. It even becomes more and more difficult for normal users to protect themselves and to detect the real risks behind every part of the network.
This problem is likely to increase and will become more and more problematic in the coming years. It seems as well that the cloud is becoming a part of our normal network these days. And we all use the cloud very intensively already. Even G Data has part of their products using the cloud and other companies do it as well.
With the launch and the announcements of various in-the-cloud OSes and mobile OSes we maybe have to think twice about what it will really mean for security in the future. And it is not only Chrome OS but also OSes like Joli OS, CloudMe, Glide and EyeOS. Apple’s iCloud is a little bit different, as it is more data-storage related and not an OS in itself but iOS and Android are also intensively using the cloud already, at least more than the traditional OSes.
The advantages
The advantages are obvious and very clear. First of all, we will always be up-to-date as patches or new features will be installed automatically . We won’t need to think about new product versions anymore, as we always will be using more or less the most recent versions.
Most software will be run in the browser. Of course we will be able to run browser plugins to create our own influenced desktop. So, most of the OSes and plugins or apps will run in some sandbox system, as this seems to be the keyword in all these cloud and mobile related OSes, products and services. And, most of the user data will be stored in the cloud for us to use it everywhere.
The risks
Although we have not looked into advantages and security related problems extensively, the issues mentioned above clearly show that the dangers and threats will stay but will move to different domains and vectors. This battle is definitely not finished yet!