Microsoft Looks For ISO Security Certification For The Cloud Services

26th October 2009

Microsoft Corporation is in a need to get its suite of hosted messaging as well as the collaboration products certified to ISO 27001 which is the international information security standard, in an effort to try and assure its customers about the security of the cloud computing services. In general, there are some doubts about the ability of the cloud vendors to properly secure the services.

Google that has not made any secret of its ambition in the arena of cloud computing is now working to get its services certified to the Federal Information Security Management Act standards of the government for much of the same reason.

It is not much clear that how many of the value customers of either of the companies will be attaching to this certification, merely because they were not specifically designed to audit the environments of cloud computing. Even so, the external validation that is offered by the standards is likely to put both of these companies in somewhat better position to sell to the market of the U.S. government.

The International Organization for Standardization (ISO) as well as the International Electro-technical Commission manages the ISO 27001 standard. For certification under this standard, Microsoft needs to show its physical, logical, as well as the process and management controls for the protection of its suite of cloud services will meet a rigorous set of audit criteria.