Hybrid Cloud For Dummies

Exploring the Risks of Running in the Cloud

We’ve talked a bit about some of the factors that lead to security risks in the cloud environment. Now, we go into a little more detail about the specific kinds of risks you might face, beginning with the categories of security risks. According to the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), a government standards body, computer systems are subject to many threats ranging from loss of data to loss of a whole computing facility because of fire or natural disaster. These losses can come from trusted employees or from hackers. NIST divides these risks into the following categories:

Errors and omissions including data errors or programming errors

Fraud and theft

Employee sabotage

Loss of physical infrastructure support

Malicious hackers

Malicious code

Threats to individual personal privacy

Many of the same security risks that companies ...