Data mining puts cloud security back on agenda

Concerns about security in the cloud are flaring anew after recent revelations about government data-mining, likely spurring new technology to protect corporate and consumer information, according to a panel of cloud experts.

Reports that the National Security Agency (NSA) secretly gathers user data from nine big Internet companies, including Microsoft Corp (MSFT.O) and Google Inc (GOOG.O), have dented confidence in cloud computing, especially among customers outside the United States.

The reports have triggered debate over how far the government can go in its quest to enhance national security, and also provoked outrage from many non-U.S. users depending on large American Internet corporations for everything from email to Internet storage to social networking, industry executives told the Reuters Global Technology Summit on Wednesday.

SOURCE: reuters.com