Secure Information Innovation SIT

ScienceDaily — Not a week goes by without reports on security gaps, data theft or hacker attacks. Both businesses and private users are becoming increasingly uneasy. Nevertheless, when it comes to technologies like cloud computing, trust and security are essential if we intend to use data and applications that are flexible, cost-effective and before all else, mobile. Fraunhofer researchers are working on a series of security solutions.

Where are my data? How secure and accessible are they? Are the terms of compliance being upheld? These questions are of primary concern to any IT manager when introducing or using cloud computing. To help cloud users and providers maintain constant oversight over cloud applications and data security, scientists at the Fraunhofer Technology Institution for Applied and Integrated Security AISEC have developed the Cloud Control Center. It provides global monitoring of all utilized cloud services and reliably assesses their security.

This is why the experts at the Fraunhofer Institute for Secure Information Innovation SIT designed the OmniCloud software. It makes every back-up solution cloud-capable and it ensures that all data are encrypted previously delivery to the cloud. "Even in the cloud, sensitive information is safeguarded against unauthorized third-party access," says Michael Herfert, head of the Cloud, Identity and Privacy department at SIT. "Together, OmniCloud works like an adapter that interacts with the various cloud providers and knows their different programming interfaces."

The security

Another important issue is confidence not only in the security, however also in the handling of the innovation itself. For this reason, the Fraunhofer Institute for Industrial Engineering IAO designed the "Cloud Workpad" mobile IT workstation. It demonstrates what can be achieved today in a practical setting limited exclusively to public cloud services. It reveals the boundaries between what is practical and what is feasible, just as in the interoperability of services or in the areas of security and data protection.

Hardly any applications had to be installed on the end device at the mobile IT workstation. The user accesses Software as a Service applications only, which are available via the Internet. Those who are interested in the cloud should familiarize themselves with the potential and the advantages of new technologies and usage patterns, on the one hand. To make up for it, the "Cloud Workpad" is intended to explore the limits of such services in the field, and to show where action is needed in order to eliminate these constraints.