Virtualization is a key factor in Cloud security

SAN FRANCISCO--virtualization technologies allow you to better control and security in cloud computing environments, said Art Coviello, RSA Chief today.

In a keynote address at the RSA Security Conference here, Coviello has hit an optimistic tone about cloud security issues. While he recognized some of the concerns enterprises might have about how to move data and applications to the cloud, said that approaches to address possible issues are closer than many think.

"Trust in the cloud is feasible today," Ivanov said, adding that the key is to stop depending on the security controls designed for physical infrastructure. Instead, companies should consider leveraging virtualization technologies to enable advanced security, visibility and control they want in cloud environments.

Coviello argued that security needs to be approached to information or transactions which is protecting. In virtual environments, static damage perimeter way logical boundaries defined by information and transactions. Therefore safety must become logical as well.

"The stack IT is changing. Our borders are logical, rather than physical. We can not depend on the physical infrastructure for security, "he said.

Virtual machines are designed by nature to adjust dynamically loads of work, he said. As a security really work in these types of environments, the controls must be just as dynamic. "That means building security in virtualized components and, by extension, distribution of safety throughout the cloud," he said.

Security policies and best practices must be encoded and enforced by systems of automated security management for the cloud, Coviello said. The focus should be on enabling protection that is more risk-based and adaptable to changing conditions--and less static.

The economy and agility enabled by cloud computing are pushing more and more companies to adopt it, regardless of security and control concerns they may have, he said.

Counterintuitive as it may seem, "if properly exploited, virtualisation can be a path toward overcoming the level of control and visibility that exists today in physical environments," he said.

As part of its effort to enable RSA Security, the company launched a service called RSA cloud Trust Authority, Coviello said. The service will leverage VMware virtualization tools to provide a set of compliance monitoring in cloud services and identity management.

Jaikumar Vijayan covers data security and privacy issues, security, financial services and e-voting for Computerworld. Follow Jaikumar on Twitter at @ jaivijayan or Subscribe to the RSS feed of Jaikumar. His e-mail address is jvijayan@computerworld.com.

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