In an unusual display of concern, the president of Google Enterprise has made a public statement saying there should be no cause for alarm about Google Apps and its cloud computing infrastructure following a major data breach by a China-based attack on Google and 20 other large enterprise companies.
David Girouard, Google's president of Google Enterprise, said in a personally written blog post that Google suffered a massive cyber attack last month. According to the corporate Google blog, the attackers came away from Google with stolen intellectual property.
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Girouard downplayed the impact of the attack. He said Google "believes" the breach did not affect Google Apps customers.
Girouard, obviously concerned about the backlash, said the incident may raise some questions about Google security. He said that Google is introducing additional security measures to help ensure the safety of customer's data.
There are consistent questions about cloud computing's potential security flaws. Girouard is well aware of this. He tries to make it clear that this incident was not an assault on cloud computing.
"It was an attack on the technology infrastructure of major corporations in sectors as diverse as finance, technology, media, and chemical. The route the attackers used was malicious software used to infect personal computers. Any computer connected to the Internet can fall victim to such attacks. While some intellectual property on our corporate network was compromised, we believe our customer cloud-based data remains secure."
Girouard comes close to making a sales pitch in his statement, saying, in fact, that Google customers benefit from the Internet giant's investment in data security.
"While any company can be subject to such an attack, those who use our cloud services benefit from our data security capabilities. At Google, we invest massive amounts of time and money in security. Nothing is more important to us. Our response to this attack shows that we are dedicated to protecting the businesses and users who have entrusted us with their sensitive email and document information. We are telling you this because we are committed to transparency, accountability, and maintaining your trust."
This is an incredible incident that will lead to some major issues for Google Enterprise over the next several months. As the battle heats up for cloud computing supremacy, competitors will pick at this incident as an example of why a company that's more security conscious should be trusted with customer data, not a search engine giant.
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