RSA president calls on security industry to adopt cloud technologies

>> We, in the security industry, need a more elevated and expansive vision connected to the huge wave of IT transformation that is underway right now, cloud computing. Think for a moment about why cloud computing is so powerful. It enables businesses to leave their aging, inflexible and costly IT infrastructures behind and move to a new payasyougo model characterized by choice and agility, and not a moment too soon. Because organizations are spending as much as two thirds of their IT budgets to just maintain their infrastructures and applications, keeping the lights on. Cloud computing can dramatically alter this two thirds/one third ratio so that much more energy and investment can be directed toward real innovation and competitive advantage. The trouble is, something's holding back the full realization of this vision. And that, in a word, is security. CIO Magazine recently published its State of the CIO study. And get this, 51% of CIOs surveyed, more than half cited security as their greatest concern surrounding the adoption of cloud computing. And if you're suffering from cloud fatigue or are tired of hearing about it, let me remind you of the then MIT media lab's visionary, Nicholas Negroponte, who said in 1997 that the internet was the most overhyped, but underestimated, phenomenon in history. Mark my words, the same will be true of cloud computing. Cloud computing will complete the transformation of IT infrastructures unleashed by the internet. Organizations will demand it because they must, absolutely must get faster and better returns on their IT investments. So we must play an essential role in making cloud computing a reality. So here's the scope of our challenge and our opportunity, as I see it. The challenge is to ensure that safety is designed and built into the cloud so that organizations of every size, from the smallest merchant or agency to the largest government or multinational, can make broad use of the cloud, fully confident that their information and transactions are secure. Our industry needs to deliver security solutions that ensure levels of protection in the cloud that surpass what physical environments offer today. In short, people must everywhere be able to trust the cloud, even if they literally and metaphorically can't see it. That's our challenge. What about our opportunity? The answer is that cloud computing is going to make your work more important and prominent than ever before. Cloud computing is our opportunity to change the way we deliver security inside out. I say that because the cloud will force organizations to pay serious attention to their security management processes, not just their end point, dead end point security technologies. We have the rare opportunity for a doover, to be present at the creation and rollout of this new wave of computing with security built in from the getgo.

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