For many businesses, one of the primary concerns is the safety and security of data. There have been too many incidents in the past where seemingly secure databases were broken into by cyber-criminals and created havoc on the files, destroying, corrupting, or worse, using the information gained to perpetrate more crimes. This is why companies that offer cloud computing as a service put safety and security of data as their foremost concern, assuring prospective subscribers that though a hacker is born every minute, they have the best team of experts developing protection solutions every second.

There are some companies, however, that cannot be assuaged by this assurance of cloud computing providers. These companies maintain that since they would be at the mercy of the providers when it comes down to data security, disaster planning and recovery, backup, accessibility, encryption, authentication, and a host of other critical solutions that a company need to survive.

Another concern raised by these companies is the virtual impossibility of subscribers to examine and verify the security protection that these providers have put in place. This concern is not helped by the fact that most of these cloud computing provider’s data centers are spread throughout the globe and it would be very difficult for the subscriber to personally inspect these facilities.

Most of the companies that raised these concerns were those that are involved in online transactions. Studies have shown that this is the area where most incidents of infiltration attempts happen. This is because there is a wealth of data that can be stolen and then used by the cyber-criminals to gain financial rewards.

Although a lot of companies would like to shift to this new paradigm of modern computing, serious concerns on safety and security seem to hold them back from riding the tide of cloud computing. Perhaps, unless these cloud computing providers put well defined security layers on their databases, companies would continue to be worried about their databases.

On one end, however, cloud computing service providers have maintained that the security layers around their databases is so stringent that hackers would find it difficult to penetrate even just the first tier. In fact, cloud computing providers have banded themselves to conduct research and development for the purpose of discovering more techniques that may be utilized by hackers to penetrate the system, then applying the solutions necessary so that the same method could never be used again.

With the current developments and progress that cloud computing providers are making, it can be said that the security concerns raised are being addressed so that the service would be safe and secure to use. One thing is unquestionably sure. cloud computing technology will be the wave of the future and will be changing how people use the information highway for decades to come.