Cyber criminals can hack on the cheap thanks to Google
December 3, 2012
Grazed from CloudPro.co.uk. Author: Davey Winder.
A new research paper has described how hackers can benefit from Google for cheap cloud computing – will this open the floodgates? Because I spend the most of my working day writing about the IT security space, you might think I get to read an awful lot of research papers concerning proof of concept threats and potential exploits.
And you would be right. On the whole, while these are interesting enough to someone such as myself, when it comes to the actual real-world risk posed to your average enterprise by such research that is best summed up in the title of a recent blog of mine: Cryptography attack: side-channel cloud threat is all nerd and no knickers. I concluded that particular piece by saying that "If you are a business with real data out there in the real cloud, and assuming you’ve followed basic security best-practice strategies, including the rather obvious non-use of public clouds for highly sensitive data storage, you can move on: nothing to see here…"…
But not all labs-based security research can be so readily dismissed. Take the new Google MapReduce proof of concept, for example. Researchers from NC State University and the University of Oregon are going to present their paper with the up-beat title of Abusing Cloud-Based Browsers for Fun and Profit at a security applications conference in Orlando, Florida next week. Ordinarily I wouldn’t recommend these kind of papers unless you suffer from insomnia and have tired of counting sheep, but give this one a go if you are of a technical IT bent. It’s worth investing a little time in getting your heading around it, in my never humble opinion. Not least as the potential for this to find a place in the very real world of computer crime is quite high…
Read more from the source @ http://www.cloudpro.co.uk/cloud-essentials/cloud-security/5081/cyber-criminals-can-hack-cheap-thanks-google