UK Government To Share Restricted Files In the Cloud 44
twoheadedboy writes "The UK Government wants to use the cloud to share restricted files. Given the concerns around cloud and security, this will worry some. Nevertheless, a deal between the services arm of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) and SaaS provider Huddle has been penned. The SaaS service will run in the FCO's internal cloud, known as the Government Secure Application Environment (GSAE). This will allow civil servants, diplomats and other Government staff to share documents up to the secrecy level IL3, or Restricted."
Might as well... (Score:5, Insightful)
CLOUD CLOUD CLOUD (Score:5, Insightful)
Please stop using that word. It makes you sound technologically illiterate.
You mean via a network, or on the internet, or something similar. "The cloud" is a stupid buzzword that needs to die RIGHT NOW.
Cloud or no, it all depends on the security used (Score:5, Insightful)
If we pull the cloud buzzword out of the picture and consider this a remote storage/collaberation option, it can be decently secure, if controls are put in place doing encryption on multiple levels.
On the workgroup level, PGP NetShare can do a decent job, especially if the PGP keys are stored on cryptographic hardware tokens.
On the enterprise level, there are various IRM/encryption systems which can help, be it LockLizard or others. There is even one built into Windows/Office that is fairly usable.
The key (pardon the pun) is how this gets implemented. Done right, a compromise of the external disks may net a bunch of unreadable files. Done wrong, and the UK might as well just seed their snapshots to demonoid's tracker.