Is The Cloud Up in Smoke?

Cloud computing is facing its share of problems with break-ins and breakdowns and Sony’s security lapse hit the news and Amazon’s system experienced an outage. Some say these could be the biggest data privacy breaches.

In a story by The Economist, Sony admitted hackers stole personal information including (possibly) credit card details of 77 million users of its online gaming and entertainment networks.

Cloud computing is facing its share of problems with break-ins and breakdowns and Sony’s security lapse hit the news and Amazon’s system experienced an outage. Some say these could be the biggest data privacy breaches.

In a story by The Economist, Sony admitted hackers stole personal information including (possibly) credit card details of 77 million users of its online gaming and entertainment networks.

Amazon also suffered a long breakdown at the giant server farms. The two lapses, though different in nature have raised the question: Can customers really trust the idea of cloud computing?

For Sony, it’s vital consumers do in fact use the cloud as the company plans to position its PlayStation console as an entertainment hub to deliver films and music over the internet.

Sony failed to encrypt its customers personal details. An almost unforgivable mistake for a high tech company don’t you think?

What happened with Amazon on the other hand was caused by a glitch that took longer than expected to resolve, interrupting the use of its services and partners, but their users were not put at risk.

But is building a totally secure and reliable cloud-based system possible?

The main lesson from Sony and Amazon for other provider is: adhere to basic principles of computer security. In the meantime, consumers should protect their details by not using the same passwords on multiple online systems.