“Companies are pushing more sensitive and regulated data into the cloud. But, this journey is raising questions like 'security of data'.”

Applying software-as-a-service (SaaS), Infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS) and platform-as-a-service (PaaS) add on some more risk to the organizations. Ericka Chickowshi(specializes in information technology and business innovation) in her article “10 security questions to ask a cloud service provider” at Informationweek, discussed about 10 questions to be asked by companies from SaaS service providers before applying cloud. Some of them are:

·         Do you keep a signed audit trail of which users performed what actions when, both through their UI and API?

·         What is my role and your role in the protection of my data?

·         Do you encrypt all data transmissions, including all server-to-server data transmissions, within data centers?

·         What is your termination or ‘exit process’ for ensuring successful transition from services to an alternative offering?

·         Do you allow customers to perform scheduled penetration tests of either the production environment or a designated testing environment?

Asking these questions can help you to assess the risk. To know more questions and their reason for asking, visit the following link: 
http://www.darkreading.com/informationweek-home/10-security-questions-to-ask-a-cloud-service-provider/d/d-id/1320377