Gartner summit: ID management key to cloud success

The security industry's biggest headache at the moment is how best to secure cloud-based data and these issues were revisited again today at the Gartner Identity and Access Management (IAM) summit.

Attendees at the summit were in agreement that the cloud will force CIOs to implement formal identity and access management strategies across their organisations.

Tim Dunn, vice-president security strategy Europe at software vendor CA Technologies, explained that security fears around data stored in the cloud make it more essential to control access rights to both upload and download information.

Kurt Johnson, vice-president strategy and corporate development for IAM solutions provider Courion, explained that the cloud adds significant challenges.

"You can't just shut off network access once someone steps away from the company. Now they could go into the nearest coffee shop and be right back on," he said.

He explained that organisations should also ensure they have a hybrid strategy for IAM, one that takes both cloud and on-premise into account.

Ant Allan, research vice-president at analyst firm Gartner, explained that the industry is moving towards a hybrid approach.

"Through 2015, over 50 per cent of cloud-based IAM solutions will be hybrid, with software and scalable service-based solutions integrated for cloud computing," he said.