Trend Cloud Security Blog – Cloud Computing Experts

Savings with Cloud Security — A Look at the Numbers

Posted by Christine Drake in Cloud, Cloud-based Security, SaaS, Security, Smart Protection Network, Threats Jan 19th, 2012 | 4 Comments When people talk about cloud security it can mean either 1) security for the cloud—security that protects your cloud initiatives, like protection for virtual machines or data stored in the cloud; or 2) security from the cloud such as Security as a Service that uses the cloud to deliver some aspect of protection, like hosted email or web security.  Here, I’d like to focus on security from the cloud that’s delivered in a hybrid model—a cloud-client architecture.  Using the cloud for security can deliver faster threat protection and better security.  Traditional security has relied on signature...

What Are the True Dangers of the Cloud?

Posted by Christine Drake in Cloud, Cyber crime, DataCenter, hybrid-cloud, IaaS, PaaS, private cloud, public cloud, SaaS, Secure Data Centers, Securing the Cloud, Security, Threats, Threats from the Cloud, Virtualization Sep 8th, 2011 | 7 Comments We often hear that security and privacy concerns are the main inhibitors to cloud adoption.  But what are the true threats?  Is the cloud really more dangerous than your on-site data center?  I would say that virtualization and cloud computing aren’t inherently more dangerous, but they have unique infrastructure that must be addressed when creating a security foundation.  There are similar attacks across physical, virtual, and cloud infrastructures—data-stealing malware, web threats, spam, phishing, bots, etc. So many companies are tempted to deploy their security for dedicated physical...

The Small Business Journey to the Cloud is Actually a Round Trip

Posted by Greg Boyle in Cloud, Cloud-based Security, DataCenter, hybrid-cloud, IaaS, PaaS, Privacy, Compliance and Identity, private cloud, public cloud, SaaS, Secure Data Centers, Securing the Cloud, Security, Smart Protection Network, Threats, Threats from the Cloud, Virtualization Apr 20th, 2011 | 2 Comments The Small Business Journey to the Cloud is Actually a Round Trip      By Greg Boyle, Trend Micro Global Product Marketing Manager Many small businesses are still uncertain about cloud computing. They wonder if it can help with their profitability without being extremely risky. Let’s start by defining cloud computing in small business terms. There are two commonly agreed upon types of cloud computing: 1) software-as-a-service and 2) infrastructure-as-a-service. Software-as-a-service (SaaS) is cloud computing where the software you would normally install on your computers in the office is instead...

Devops Does Not Make for Secure Ops

Posted by Dave Asprey in Cloud, Cloud-based Security, IaaS, PaaS, public cloud, SaaS, Securing the Cloud, Security, Threats from the Cloud Mar 22nd, 2011 | 7 Comments In our hectic cloud-based world, devops (the mixing of infrastructure operations with software development) has become the standard way we build and run high-scale sites from IaaS to SaaS. There are lessons to be learned from how we got here, especially because devops isn’t very security friendly. Here’s how we got to this sorry state, from the perspective of someone who started working on cloud infrastructure in 1998. I’ve run both dev and ops functions in multiple cloud environments and launched two early cloud computing services. I also ran the Web & Internet Engineering program for...

What is Cloudbursting?

Posted by Bharath Chandrasekhar in Cloud, Cloud-based Security, cloudbursting, DataCenter, hybrid-cloud, private cloud, public cloud, Securing the Cloud, Security, Threats from the Cloud, Uncategorized, Virtualization Mar 15th, 2011 | 8 Comments Do you know what cloudbursting is? It is a concept where when you run out of your computing resources in your internal data center, you “burst” the additional workload to an external cloud on an on-demand basis. The internal computing resource is the “Private Cloud” and the external cloud is typically a “public cloud” for which the organization gets charged on a pay-per-use basis. When your deployment has the ability to do “cloudbursting” or spreading the load to the public cloud, you essentially have a Hybrid Cloud. Hybrid Clouds can deliver a bit...

OpenPaas and CloudBees: Java in the Cloud

Posted by Bharath Chandrasekhar in Cloud, IaaS, PaaS, SaaS, Secure Data Centers, Securing the Cloud, Virtualization Feb 28th, 2011 | 1 Comment One of the delivery models of Cloud Computing is Platform-as-a-Service. In its true definition, a PaaS provider takes care of the underlying infrastructure including the VMs, OS patches, elasticity, auto-scaling, firewalling, etc and provides an API — and a language runtime — to which the programmer should write the code. The users of PaaS have no control over the underlying infrastructure, i.e. there is nothing “open” about it. The most prominent PaaS offerings are Force.com from Salesforce (Apex), Google App Engine (Python and Java), and Microsoft Azure (.NET). It is obvious...

Good Clouds, Evil Clouds: Why Microsoft Hasn’t Lost Yet in Cloud Computing

Posted by Dave Asprey in Cloud, Cloud-based Security, Cyber crime, IaaS, Malware, PaaS, SaaS, Secure Data Centers, Securing the Cloud, Security, Smart Protection Network, Threats, Threats from the Cloud Feb 6th, 2011 | 6 Comments In a recent eWeek interview, Citrix CTO Simon Crosby described Conficker malware as “the world’s largest cloud.” He’s right. Cybercriminals use Conficker to create massive clouds of remotely-controlled PCs capable of carrying out a variety of cyber-attacks, including DDoS (Distributed Denial of Service) attacks on a scale larger than any centralized cloud provider could. We tend to think about data center-based clouds with names like Infrastructure-as-a-Service or Software-as-a-Service, but the future of really big clouds looks more like Conficker’s very powerful networks of distributed...

London Bridge is Falling Down

Posted by Justin Foster in Cloud, Cloud-based Security, IaaS, PaaS, SaaS, Virtualization Jan 11th, 2011 | Comments Off Drawing of London Bridge from a 1682 map.  Image courtesy of Wikipedia. Everyone is familiar with the traditional nursery rhyme, “London Bridge is Falling Down.” However, few know that it traces its roots back to a factual wonder of the medieval world. In 1209 a massive stone bridge was opened over the river Thames. Quite different than the modern London Bridge we know today, this colossal structure was an engineering marvel of its day and included a chapel at the apex of the bridge. It didn’t take long for people to realize the potential of this new prime real estate and by the late 1200’s...

VMware Kool-Aid: “There’s No Cloud Without Virtualization”

Posted by Dave Asprey in Cloud, IaaS, PaaS, SaaS, Virtualization Jan 4th, 2011 | Comments Off   I’m a huge fan of VMware, even though I spent some time competing with them when I ran strategic planning for the Citrix virtualization business (pre-Xen). I even tried to build a cloud with VMware  in 2002, when it wasn’t yet server-grade for data center operations. It’s a killer company with great virtualization software, and it’s done an incredible and outstanding job holding its own against industry giants like Microsoft, and pivoting from hypervisor vendor to cloud infrastructure vendor. That said, I have to wonder why, in this CNET interview, Chris Knowles, VMware’s...

Is the Federal Government’s Shiny New Cloud Secure?

Posted by Dave Asprey in Cloud-based Security, Cyber crime, Privacy, Compliance and Identity, Secure Data Centers, Securing the Cloud, Threats from the Cloud, Virtualization Dec 9th, 2010 | 2 Comments On December 5, 2010 the Washington Post printed this article: “Federal government moves forward with ‘cloud-first’ plan for new technology.” Trend Micro asked our VP of Cloud Security, Dave Asprey, to provide his thoughts and opinions about this government plan.  Here is what Dave wrote: It’s exciting to see that the GSA is leading the way to modernize the federal government’s IT by moving to “the cloud.”   However, in the rush to save money, the GSA may be repeating some mistakes that company IT departments have already made. To go to the cloud, the GSA had to...