National Webcast Initiative

Cloud Computing: Security Risks and Consideration

Wednesday, June 27
2:00pm -- 3:00pm (Eastern)

Presenters:

Chris Coleman
Director, Cyber Security

U.S. Public Sector, Cisco Systems

 

&

 

Keith Tresh

State Chief Information Security Officer

State of California

View the Archived Recording

The third webcast in the 2012 National Webcast series was held on June 27th with a featured presentation on Cloud Computing: Security Risks and Considerations.

Over 800 individuals representing 6 countries, 50 states, DC, and 1 U.S. Territories registered for this event. Opening remarks were provided by Ms. Krista Montie, Director of Communications for the Center for Internet Security, followed by Chris Coleman, Director, Cyber Security at Cisco Systems and Keith Tresh, State Chief Information Security Officer for the State of California.

Cloud computing offers substantial benefits that, when evaluated alone, seem to make its adoption a no-brainer. The "easy deployment" and "no longer requiring in-house IT staff" ideas make cloud computing especially attractive to government and smaller organizations unable to afford the resources and personnel necessary to run their own dedicated servers 24/7. But as with any new technology, cloud computing brings a lot of extra baggage and potential unintended consequences, ranging from security concerns to the risks associated with centralization.

This webcast explored both the risks and benefits associated with cloud computing.

Chris Coleman, Director of Cyber Security, U.S. Public Sector from Cisco opened the webcast and talked about the general risks and benefits, and why so many government and private companies are moving to cloud computing. He highlighted why implementing any new technology has unforeseen consequences (both risks and benefits).

Keith Tresh, Chief Information Security Officer for the State of California, then discussed cloud computing from a state government perspective. He discussed why some states are not jumping on the bandwagon as quickly as private sector agencies are and why cloud may not be right for all government entities to adopt. Although the cloud can provide many benefits for government agencies, including the ability to decrease costs, deploy systems more quickly, and devote fewer resources to day-to-day tasks, cloud computing also contains some ugly security realities. Keith discussed his perspective on some of these realities, and the challenges government agencies face in implementing cloud computing.

 Format of Webcast:
This session will featured an interactive Powerpoint presentation accompanied by audio.