IT security problems shift to the cloud

"I don't think any system is thoroughly secure," said Stelios Sidiroglou-Douskos, a technology scientist at the Massachusetts Institute of Research's Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory.

Number of cloud security breaches have raised concerns

A number of cloud security breaches have raised concerns, including attacks on the Sony PlayStation Network, LinkedIn and Google's Gmail service.

"Crimes target sources of value. Large company networks offer more targets to hackers," says Nir Kshetri, a professor of economics who studies cybercrime at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro.

Kshetri said in a paper submitted to the journal Telecommunications Policy that when questions come up, "the cloud industry's response has been: Clouds are more secure than whatever you're using now. However many users do not agree."

Marcus Sachs, former director of the Sans Innovation Institute's Internet Storm Center, said the cloud may be more secure however it as well creates new questions.

Still, the cloud market is growing rapidly, with companies and government agencies moving to either "public" clouds that are easily accessed or so-called "private clouds" that are segregated from the internet.

Some analysts say other issues need to be resolved about cloud computing, just as who is liable if data is lost, and how data can be accessed for government investigations.