US Intelligence moving to cloud

Cloud computing has been touted by many as the future of IT, but detractors say no amount of security will ever replace having information on site.

Now, an organisation that epitomises security consciousness, the US National Security Agency (NSA), has told Forbes it will move its computing operations to the cloud by the end of this year.

The report says Jim Clapper, director of national intelligence for the US government, told delegates at a geospatial intelligence forum that the United States intelligence community (including the NSA, as well as the CIA and FBI) will use cloud computing to meet budget reduction targets over the next 10 years.

Forbes then went to Keith Alexander, director of the NSA, who confirmed the strategy, saying his organisation would make the move by the end of this year.

Alexander says in some respects moving to the cloud enables better security, in that security patches can be implemented organisation-wide in one shot.

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