5 Cloud Contract Traps To Avoid

January 27, 2015 Off By David

Grazed from InformationWeek.  Author: Joe Stangenelli.

Going to the cloud makes things easier, right?  Then why is it so complicated?  Cloud computing contracts are often full of traps for the unsuspecting customer — traps that can compromise data and expose said customer to fines, lawsuits, and other problems.

These traps hurt not just cloud customers but the entire cloud industry. Organizations in highly regulated industries (such as healthcare and finance) are notoriously nephophobic because of the massive legal liabilities they face for data compromises. They fear handing control of their data (let alone encryption keys) to cloud providers — and often for good reason, unfortunately…

Many cloud providers like to advertise that they are HIPAA-ready, or use other puffery-invoking the names of whatever regulatory scheme their target demographics are subject to, but they might fail to comply with these legal standards for which they boast they are "ready" or "certified." For example, the vast majority of major cloud storage providers are not SEC-compliant. Many providers offering services for some industries have never even been independently audited against those industries’ regulations…

Read more from the source @ http://www.informationweek.com/cloud/software-as-a-service/5-cloud-contract-traps-to-avoid/d/d-id/1318791