Is Cloud Security Better than the Private Data Center?

Most people think of the cloud as a less secure alternative to developing, maintaining and managing a private data center for their organization. While that may have been true in the past, the scales are starting to tip in the opposite direction. Thanks in no small part to recent high profile breaches that have called attention to data security, cloud providers are more paranoid and, as a result, more attentive to security risks thereby implementing better security mechanisms.

Among cost savings and other benefits that the cloud provides, a major selling point offered by public clouds are those better security mechanisms and a staff paid, in part, to be paranoid and keep their eye on the latest security threats and practices. Of course, all of that security is born out of the threat that comes from the fact that they’re a natural target. Because of their scale and how high of a target value that they are cloud providers have both the resources and the natural incentive to be more secure than their private counterparts. If a cloud provider were to suffer a breach their customers are likely to take their business somewhere else.

Because of this natural incentive ad inclination toward security, it shouldn’t be a surprise that hackers are moving on to easier targets, those targets being private enterprise data centers. Because their on-site security systems aren’t typically updated as often as their public cloud counterparts, in-house security scan be simply overcome by hackers. The number of these attacks are increasing weekly and defense needs to be more proactive than most enterprise IT organizations can afford to be.

Obviously the value and variety of data stored in cloud data centers is the main counterpoint to the argument that the public cloud is more secure than private data centers. The more valuable the information, the juicer they are as a target and the more some hackers might be willing to invest in their attacks.

Do you think that the public cloud will contribute to the decline of the private enterprise data center?