Cloud Security Alliance Releases Results of Cloud Consumer Advocacy Questionnaire and Information Survey

CCAQIS Identifies Top Requirements and Needs for Governing and Operating Data in the Cloud

Orlando, FL – Nov 16, 2011 – The Cloud Security Alliance (CSA) Cloud Data Governance (CDG) working group today introduced the results of its

Cloud Consumer Advocacy Questionnaire and Information Survey. The survey is the first deliverable for the CDG working group, which will now turn its focus to delivering best practices recommendations, prioritizing and answering the key problems and questions identified by cloud stakeholders in the survey. The questionnaire asked consumers to provide their input on the current state of public cloud provider maturity in addressing the following key issues, which were previously highlighted in the CSA’s Security Guidance for Critical Areas of Cloud Computing: * Data discovery * Location of the data * Data aggregation and inference * Comingling data with other cloud customers * Use of data security controls * Encryption and key management practices * Data backup and recovery schemes for recovery and restoration * Data remanence or persistence “Cloud computing shifts the emphasis from “systems” to “data”, and as a result, stakeholders need to be aware of the best practices for governing and operating data and information in the cloud” said Ryan Ko, one of the co-chairs of the CDG working group. “With this initial survey, we aimed to capture the current state of data governance and data security capabilities offered by leading cloud service providers. These results will be extremely useful for our future guidance and research on best practices for data governance and security in the cloud.” The group surveyed almost 50 subject matter experts in senior technical roles at organizations including the industry’s largest cloud providers worldwide. In addition to the survey results, the initial paper also provides working group recommendations in each area, to be expanded upon in future work products. “Standardization of data governance policies for cloud environments will accelerate rapid adoption of cloud computing across the industry,” said John Maddison, VP, Executive General Manager Data Center Business Unit of Trend Micro, sponsors of the initiative. “We congratulate the working group on the results of this tremendous undertaking, and look forward to the future work products, which will build on these findings to help consumers gain greater awareness of the best practices for governing and operating data and information in the Cloud.” The working group is led by the CSA Singapore and CSA Silicon Valley chapters, and was co-chaired by George Goh, Ryan Ko and Richard Lim of the Singapore chapter, and Srinivas Jaini and Tim Mather of the Silicon Valley chapter. The full survey results can be found at

http://www.cloudsecurityalliance.org/research/working-groups/cdg. Tweet this: @cloudsa #Cloud #DataGovernance group releases results of Consumer Advocacy survey http://bit.ly/sJgyFd About the Cloud Security Alliance The Cloud Security Alliance is a not-for-profit organization with a mission to promote the use of best practices for providing security assurance within Cloud Computing , and to provide education on the uses of Cloud Computing to help secure all other forms of computing. The Cloud Security Alliance is led by a broad coalition of industry practitioners, corporations, associations and other key stakeholders. For further information, visit us at www.cloudsecurityalliance.org, and follow us on Twitter @cloudsa. Media Contacts: Zenobia Godschalk [email protected] 650.269.8315