Only Cloud Providers Get Security Right. Can IT Vendors Catch Up?

Slashdot reader storagedude writes: If cloud service providers are the only ones who can get security right, will everyone eventually move to the cloud? That's one of the questions longtime IT systems architect Henry Newman asks in a new article on eSecurity Planet. "The concept of zero trust has been around since 2010, when Forrester Research analyst John Kindervag created the zero trust security model. Yet two years after the devastating Colonial Pipeline attack and strong advocacy from the U.S. government and others, we are still no closer to seeing zero trust architecture widely adopted," Newman writes. "The only exception, it seems, has been cloud service providers, who boast an enviable record when it comes to cybersecurity, thanks to rigorous security practices like Google's continuous patching." "As security breaches continue to happen hourly, sooner or later zero trust requirements are going to be forced upon all organizations, given the impact and cost to society. The Biden Administration is already pushing ambitious cybersecurity legislation, but it's unlikely to get very far in the current Congress. I am very surprised that the cyber insurance industry has not required zero trust architecture already, but perhaps the $1.4 billion Merck judgment that went against the industry last week will begin to change that. "The central question is, can any organization implement a full zero trust stack, buy hardware and software from various vendors and put it together, or will we all have to move to cloud service providers (CSPs) to get zero trust security? "Old arguments that cloud profit margins will eventually make on-premises IT infrastructure seem like the cheaper alternative failed to anticipate an era when security became so difficult that only cloud service providers could get it right." Cloud service providers have one key advantage when it comes to security, Newman notes: They control, write and build much of their software and hardware stacks. Newman concludes: "I am somewhat surprised that cloud service providers don't tout their security advantages more than they do, and I am equally surprised that the commercial off-the-shelf vendors do not band together faster than they have been to work on zero trust. But what surprises me the most is the lack of pressure on everyone to move to zero trust and get a leg or two up on the current attack techniques and make the attack plane much smaller than it is."

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