Encrypting the enterprise cloud

Security of enterprise data is paramount to IT professionals even remotely considering a move to the cloud. Knowing that, security platform makers are ramping up their efforts to demonstrate how they can help lock down cloud-based environments and make them more secure.

Upstart CipherCloud, for example, recently offered up its entry in the cloud security column. The solution is positioned as low-impact—meaning it is designed to not affect the performance of applications running in the cloud and should be transparent to the end-user experience. CipherCloud’s technology passes data through a gateway and encrypts it as it leaves the enterprise environment, requiring no modification to the network environment or to applications—and giving IT pros the confidence that their data is encrypted before it moves to the cloud.

Vormetric, meanwhile, released its Vormetric Data Security application for Amazon Web Services, which protects data in the cloud by providing access control and puts policy and audit management in a central place for IT operators. The Vormetric platform enforce encryption, enables access control policies and audit usage at the server, process and user layers. The vendor’s aim is to allow enterprises to address insider threat as well as outside security breaches.

Security remains—and is likely to always remain—top-of-mind for an enterprise IT professional moving data and applications to a cloud-based environment. Careful assessment and deployment of tools like these will ensure security issues get addressed thoroughly in the cloud—even more so, perhaps, than they traditionally have been in premises-based IT environments.