Security not any more an inhibitor to cloud adoption

Security, which has over the past few years stood out as a major reason for organizations to slowly move to cloud with utmost vigour is steadily emerging as one of the most important reasons to move cloud.

In an effort to demonstrate the steady migration to cloud and Nyimbi Odero, ICT and Innovations Advisor says implementing either public or private cloud foundations in the public sector requires considerations that are substantially different from those of the private sector.

According to Odero, the governmental and public assets are subject to attack by highly capable, skilled and well resourced state and non-state actors, criminal organizations and malevolent individuals.

Speaking during the Cloud & Security Summit themed: Safe and Secure Services Online organised by Rwanda Information Society Authority (RISA) inconjunction CIO East Africa  Odero said that despite the impetus for offensive cyber operations (OCO) against the public sector range from data theft, denial of service, psychological operations, and monitoring to establish intent; moving to cloud is the way. “The cost benefit calculus and motivations are significantly different from mere industrial espionage, commercial competition and financial gain,” said Odero adding that there is need to address aspects that relate to how to  design, implement and securely operate solutions in this space.

In this entertaining talk Odero broke down, in an intuitively accessible manner, the architectural, security and operational frameworks and considerations that need to be taken into account in the deployment of public sector solutions to the cloud. He further elucidated a framework for data, infrastructure and service protection, remediation and recovery for public sector organizations with examples (and counter examples) from his wide experience developing highly sensitive mission critical large scale public sector solutions.