Why are we so scared of cloud security?

I hear a lot peoples’ reservations about cloud computing. One of the biggest is security. No doubt Dropbox’s recent security lapse will be rolled out at every seminar and conference for the next three years to warn small children, sorry prospective users of cloud services, of the cloud’s inherent insecurity. 

But the more pertinent question is this: is the security of a cloud service weaker or stronger than you currently have? I would wager that for most not-for-profits it is emphatically stronger. I’m as big an advocate of a good firewall and a reputable anti-virus/spam package on all your systems as the next person. But let’s face it, most of the time what we’re protecting against here is the casual opportunist hacker who is targeting literally millions of potential victims. It’s like putting a burglar alarm on your house, it just makes you a bit more secure than the house next door that doesn’t have one when the opportunist thief walks by. A determined, competent hacker, targeting your organisation specifically, will almost certainly get in. Just like a determined competent burglar will break into your house if they decide your’s is the one. When the ‘celebrity’ hacker rings like Anonymous and Luzlsec see the challenge as the CIA (and allegedly succeed) what chance do we really stand?

Cloud providers spend a lot more money on their security, their reputation, as Dropbox are currenly finding out, depends on it. What they have in place is far superior to most not-for-profits. Yes there will be high profile mistakes, but tell me there haven’t been virus infestations and data breaches within hundreds, if not thousands of small not-for-profits. You’re most vulnerable point is the PC in the office with the ‘save password’ options ticked to yes, or the password written on the underside of the keyboard, or the USB stick left on a table at a conference, or that just oh-too-tempting website/email. These vulnerabilities will continue with the cloud and any other technology you use. Cloud providers anti-hack, anti-virus defences will remain a lot stronger than anything you do in house because it is one of the biggest economies of scale they bring to the table and their commercial lives depend on it.