Security

One major concern for almost every consumer is the risk of security hacking or lack of security for any device or service. As a consumer, I too am concerned about this topic. Will Venters and Edgar Whitley noted in their article that it was, "...suggested in interviews that the cloud providers may be better able to manage security, respond to distributed attacks and invest in sophisticated security hardware and software; facilities that are unavailable to all but the largest enterprises"(Venters & Whitley, 2012, pg. 7). Therefore, "largest enterprises" being Apple, Microsoft, and Google do have access to the newest and most beneficial facilities for security software and hardware for their customers.

Since there is a risk of being hacked through cloud Notess suggests in his article, "The simple approach is to keep the more sensitive files out of the cloud. Yet for an organization beginning to rely more heavily on cloud computing, evaluation the potential security implication is an important criterion in choosing a cloud storage service" (Notess, 2012, pg.3). Therefore, Notess is saying that because there are security risks it is important for any cloud user to look into and research each specific cloud company to understand their security options.

Like Notess said there is a certain risk for each cloud company, and because I am interested in Apple's iCloud I looked on Apple's website to learn more about their iCloud security. The website states, "iCloud secures your data by encrypting it when it is sent over the Internet, storing it in an encrypted format when kept on server.... and using secure tokens for authentication. This means that your data is protected from unauthorized access both while it is being transmitted to your devices and when it is stored in the cloud" (Apple Website).