The cloud is big news these days, but there are growing concerns that routing email through cloud-based data centers faces a host of security dangers, according to an article reported in nextgov.com.

"You're mixing different people's data in a cloudlike system," said Tom Kellermann, vice president of security awareness at Core Security. "How do you prevent another organization's data that has been trojanized--that has been poisoned--from getting into your data?"

This kind of warning comes at a time that the Obama administration is recommending that agencies begin shifting their computing environments to the cloud to save money. Agencies will be required to move toward cloud computing in the 2011 budget. There are plenty of warning signs, though, that this will not be easy to accomplish.

Peter Neumann, a principal scientist at the nonprofit research institute SRI International who studies network security, tells nextgov.com: "Email is a problem because of forgery--because people can do character assassinations anonymously...you've got a disaster."

Is it foolhardy for agencies to head to the cloud for email services when there are so many unknowns, or should agencies test the stamina of the cloud to protect email before heading fully into a system that could save money but offer some risks?

For more on cloud computing and email:
- check out this nextgov.com article

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