Author: Renzo Marchini
ISBN No:
Review date: 16/12/2025
No of pages: 0
Publisher: British Standards
Year of publication:
Brief:
As the title suggests, Cloud Computing. A Practical Introduction to the Legal Issues is written by a solicitor.
It’s of use to security people not least because at the start it defines cloud computing – or rather admits the term means different things to different people. He suggests it ‘refers to the delivery of computing capability (whether of an application software variety, an infrastructure delivery, or otherwise) by a provider remotely over a communications link, allowing for no actual installation (of the software or the infrastructure) at the customer site. So what? We trust our email (such as the Hotmail service) to the cloud, and our sensitive stuff (Facebook, LinkedIn and so on). Much of the book covers information security and data protection. “Cloud security is still in flux,” Marchini warns, “and it remains to be seen whether the smaller cloud providers achieve and maintain respectable levels of security. What is certain is that security will become a factor in the competition in the market, in respect of what security is in place and also in respect of how open a provider is willing to be in relation to that security when confronted by customer queries.” Security breaches can be errors in the technology or done out of malice by hackers (or IT staff?). That might mean embarrassing disclosures of passwords; or theft of credit card numbers. More of legal interest, how can you be sure of control of your data (if your competitors are hosted by the same cloud). What if you want your data back or the IT host (or a sub-contractor) goes bust? The author stresses contracts; are you paying only for a basic (vanilla, to use the slang) service? Do you have copies of your data? To sum up, a specialist book, but a readable and thought-provoking one.
