Security in organisations: Governance, risks and vulnerabilities in moving to the cloud

Abstract

Any organisation using the internet to conduct business is vulnerable to violation of security. Currently security in most organizations relates to protection of data and the management of their business information systems. Hence, security is often defined as the protection of information, the system, and hardware; that use, store and relocates that information. Governing information and the secure use of Information Technology (IT) is essential in order to reduce the possible risks and improve an Organisation’s reputation, confidence and trust with its customers. One of the importance success factors for an organization to adopt and use the cloud effectively is information security governance (ISG). As a consequence, this chapter clarifies the concept of governance and the necessity of its two factors IT governance (ITG) and ISG. Enterprise governance is directing and controlling the organization by the board of directors and executive management in order to ensure the success of the organization. ITG and ISG are integral part of corporate governance. ITG is about the structure that links IT processes, resources and information to support organisation’s objectives. IT brings several risks and threats that need to be considered. Therefore, Information security should not be considered as just a technical issue but governance challenge that needs proactive approach. ISG consists of leadership, organisational structure, processes, compliance and technology. In order to promote the adoption of cloud computing, it is important to recognize that an important and specific issue related to cloud computing is the potential and perceived security risks posed by implementing such technology. Adopting the cloud has several risks such as malicious insider threats and data breaches. An example of cloud risk is virtualization that is one of the concepts used for constructing cloud computing, which has its own security risks, but they are not specific to the cloud. Virtualization is related to open-source shared application server, database, and middleware components. The multi-tenancy model has introduced security problems as it is based on virtualization and sharing resources (hard disk, application software, and virtual machine) on the same physical machine. This chapter will present an overview of information security governance, the risks and vulnerabilities when moving to the cloud.