Gartner to hold summit on the ever-changing IT landscape
09 August 2011 15:35:41
As more organizations switch to cloud computing, chief information and privacy officers will have their hands full. With technologies advancing quicker than regulatory entities can keep pace, much of the security and standard practices of cloud computing are left up to the the organizations that utilize the technologies.
Gartner recently released a report assessing the most common concerns among privacy officers in the next two years. Data breaches, the industry analyst explains, are still a big touch point among corporations, and are expected to be a priority through the end of 2012. Because of the relatively short time cloud services currently hitting the market have been around, questions of security come naturally.
In addition to the cloud being a new IT service, data breaches have caught national attention consistently for the last few years. While it is difficult to gauge the amount of breaches through cloud systems compared to traditional IT infrastructures, the sheer number of data breaches has worried organizations about the efficacy of a new system's security measures. According to the Identity Theft Resource Center, the business sector has lost close to 3.5 million sensitive records to exposure since January 1.
Security responsibilities, Gartner asserts, will be firmly placed on the privacy officers of each given organization.
"In 2010, organizations saw new threats to personal data and privacy, while budgets for privacy protection remained under pressure," Gartner research director Carsten Casper said in a statement. "Throughout 2011 and 2012, privacy programs will remain chronically underfunded, requiring privacy officers to build and maintain strong relationship with corporate counsel … An established relationship with regulatory authorities and the privacy advocacy community will also be an advantage to them."
Gartner expects regulatory guidelines, standards and compliance to change rapidly over the next few years. As more entities use the cloud, regulatory standards will get an opportunity to solidify, and will most likely lead to advances in security. Monitoring these changes, Gartner states, will be of particular significance during the next two years.
In many ways, Gartner believes privacy protection should be heavily influenced by each given organization's stakeholders. As legal requirements catch up to technology, privacy officers will be tasked with adhering to the ever-changing laws, and obliging the needs of the persons within their company.
On September 19 and 20 this year, the industry analyst will hold the Gartner Security and Risk Management Summit 2011 in London. The summit will work to educate IT professionals, and especially privacy officers, on the best practices for privacy and data protection, compliance, infrastructure protection and more.
-McAfee Cloud Security
