Posted by: Tim Rains , director, Trustworthy Computing After recording over 25 videos on various topics related to cloud security, privacy and reliability, the Trustworthy Computing Cloud Fundamentals Video Series has concluded. During the series I had the chance to talk to numerous Microsoft cloud...

Posted by: Tim Rains , Director, Trustworthy Computing Lori Woehler, senior director in the Microsoft World Wide Public Sector team, joins me to discuss how Microsoft World Wide Public Sector works with government, health care, education, public safety, and national security customers globally...

Posted by: Tim Rains , Director, Trustworthy Computing In this blog video series, I have talked to quite a few people on the topics of security, privacy, and reliability as they relate to cloud computing. For this post, I had an opportunity to talk with Scott Charney, Corporate Vice President for...

Posted by: Tim Rains , Director, Trustworthy Computing Earlier this month, I wrote about reliability and the importance of customers knowing what measures their cloud provider has in place to deal with incidents and events that may compromise reliability when they occur. Because many customers...

Posted By: Tim Rains , Director, Trustworthy Computing Security standards for cloud computing are of high interest to many organizations around the world eager to adopt cloud services that are implemented and operated using a standards based approach. Cloud providers that choose to leverage existing...

Posted by: Tim Rains , Director, Trustworthy Computing If you’ve been following this series then you know I’ve previously written about the importance of security, compliance and privacy in the cloud. Whenever I talk to customers these themes continually come through as important topics...

Posted by: Tim Rains , Director, Trustworthy Computing It goes without saying that the physical security of the data centers where cloud services are hosted is a very important aspect of security to all of the customers I talk to. After all, if an attacker can gain physical access to the hardware...

Posted By: Tim Rains , Director, Trustworthy Computing In the past I’ve said a perfectly operated cloud service that has vulnerabilities in it due to lackluster development processes isn’t going to help protect the data that cloud customers store and process in the cloud. As reported in...

By: Tim Rains , Director, Trustworthy Computing Consumers of cloud services generally don’t get to see the layers of technology that they rely on. For many, this seamless delivery is part of the value proposition of cloud computing; depending on the type of deployment, customers expect their...

Posted by: Tim Rains , Director, Trustworthy Computing I have been asked more than a few times whether I think there are too many people involved in developing cloud security standards and best practices. The underlying concern is that when too many people get involved, the process of developing...

Posted by: Tim Rains , Director, Trustworthy Computing If you have been following our Trustworthy Computing Cloud Fundamentals Video Series you have probably seen at least two videos where we discuss the importance of transparency in cloud security controls. In addition, we have shared how the Cloud...

By: Tim Rains , Director, Trustworthy Computing Industry collaboration is critical to helping businesses, governments and citizens realize safer computing experiences. It is also important in the context of cloud security. Earlier in this series I discussed the benefits of industry collaboration...

By: Tim Rains , Director, Trustworthy Computing Earlier in this series I wrote about transparency and how the Cloud Security Alliance’s (CSA) Security Trust and Assurance Registry (STAR) provides cloud customers with some insight into how cloud providers are managing the security controls...

By: Tim Rains , Director, Trustworthy Computing The consumerization of IT, referred to by many people as “Bring Your Own Device” (BYOD), is a very hot topic these days as organizations grapple with the challenge of managing the risks in allowing their data to be placed on personal mobile...

By: Tim Rains , Director, Trustworthy Computing To date much of the public discourse I have seen on cloud computing security has centered on cloud service providers and how they manage the operations of their cloud service offerings. This aspect of cloud computing is very important, especially...

Posted by: Tim Rains , Director, Trustworthy Computing In my last post, I discussed the three tenets that encompass Microsoft’s approach to cloud computing privacy: responsibility, transparency and choice. In part two of this interview, Brendon Lynch, Microsoft’s Chief Privacy Officer...

Posted by: Tim Rains , Director, Trustworthy Computing Cloud computing is a top of mind issue for many customers, and privacy issues are among some of our customers biggest concerns. Protecting privacy is part of Microsoft’s long-term commitment to Trustworthy Computing, and we strive to build...

Posted by: Tim Rains , Director, Trustworthy Computing Many organizations want to take advantage of the cloud, but the data within existing services often contains a mix of the organization’s high, moderate, and low impact data. In this next installment of Trustworthy Computing’s Cloud...

Posted by: Tim Rains , Director, Trustworthy Computing Electronic discovery, or e-discovery, is a hot topic among security professionals whose organizations are using cloud services or are evaluating using cloud services in the future. When there is a need to perform forensic investigations to...

Posted by: Tim Rains , Director, Trustworthy Computing If you’ve been following our Cloud Fundamentals series, you’ve heard me discuss why transparency is important for both cloud service providers and their customers. Another important aspect of this theme that customers have discussed...

Posted by: Tim Rains , Director, Trustworthy Computing Benchmarks and evaluation standards for cloud computing security is a topic that is top of mind for many organizations that are evaluating the potential uses of this new computing paradigm. Many of the customers I have talked to say they would...

Posted by: Tim Rains , Director, Trustworthy Computing Security industry associations are a very important part of the computing ecosystem. Among other things they provide education, training and certification for security professionals, develop and share benchmarks and security best practices...

Posted by: Tim Rains , Director, Trustworthy Computing In my last blog post , I discussed some of the challenges associated with achieving acceptable levels of transparency for organizations seeking the benefits of cloud computing. For many organizations, visibility into how their cloud providers’...

Posted by: Tim Rains , Director, Trustworthy Computing When Information Technology departments evaluate potential uses of cloud computing for their organization, many of them quickly realize they no longer have the near omniscient visibility into the operations environment they have when hosting...

Posted by: Tim Rains , Director, Trustworthy Computing There is a lot of discussion in the industry right now about the potential cost savings for organizations that leverage of cloud computing. Another potential benefit of leveraging cloud computing is increased business agility. For many organizations...