Apple’s new cloud computing systems will apparently revolutionize the way we view our technology devices. CIO.com published this article that discuses the new iCloud system that will make working from anywhere a reality. With all this good comes the speculations and when it deals with the cloud, its all about the IT security Apple’s tech support team will have to offer. Check out the details below about the new system.
Memo to IT departments that were caught flat-footed when people started bringing their iPhones to work: You’d better get ready for the iCloud.
As with the original iPhone, it’s easy to see why a lot of workers would want to use the iCloud for both personal and professional use. Let’s say you’ve been working on a presentation all day and you want to bring it home to edit. Instead of doing so the old-fashioned way — i.e., lugging your company laptop home with you, emailing it to yourself or putting it on a flash drive — you’ll soon be able to have it pushed out automatically to all of your iCloud-capable devices, meaning that it will be ready for you on your iPad when you get home.
“iCloud treats the PC as just another device now,” says Patrick Wheeler, a senior product marketing manager for endpoint security at Trend Micro. “It becomes just another thing from which you may be accessing data, so it can let users be productive and access business documents on any of their devices.”
But as with any new technology, there are big risks involved with iCloud since users could potentially upload sensitive corporate data onto the cloud and have it spread to devices that do not have corporate security protocols. And while this risk is present in just about any cloud solution, Wheeler notes that the iCloud’s ability to automatically push out data to multiple devices makes it an even riskier proposition for most business users.
“iCloud really automates the whole process,” he says. “You used to make a conscious decision to connect to a cloud service but now it becomes a much more automated decision.”
So what’s a wary IT department to do in the face of such risks? Well, the first step is to simply acknowledge that you will have to deal with the iCloud in the near future. Tim Roddy, a senior director of product marketing for McAfee, says that cloud services in general have been gathering steam over the past two years and will soon be a staple of the IT landscape.
“Organizations are using the cloud more and more,” he says. “Right now it has unstoppable momentum.”
As far as specific solutions to securing your data on iCloud or any other cloud services, both Roddy and Wheeler recommend investing in data loss prevention (DLP) software that lets IT departments define what information can and cannot be uploaded from company devices onto the iCloud.
With all of Apple’s customers, how many do you think will fully use iCloud? How well do you think it function to reduce the need for data recovery and other tech support necessities?
