Risky Business

The Cloud Is Everywhere Today. However, Many Organisations as Well as Individuals Still Don’t Fully Trust the Nature of the Cloud. Security Correspondent Daniel Bardsley Speaks to Experts About the Risk Perception and Privacy Challenges of the Cloud.

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No brand is more iconic than CocaCola, a beverage powerhouse with a global reach that, despite growing health concerns over sugar-rich fizzy drinks, helped its parent firm to make profits of more than $1 billion last year.

Coca-Cola may trace its history back to the 19th century, but The Coca-Cola Company is not stuck in the past: in today’s digitised world, cloud computing is playing a central role in streamlining the production and distribution of the household-name drink.

“We wanted to use the cloud because we wanted to automate everything – from the moment we make the bottle to reaching the customer,” says Luciano Ludwig, a system solution architect for The Coca-Cola Company.

Headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia, The Coca-Cola Company has developed a cloud-based system involving NetApp HCI, a hyper-converged infrastructure produced by NetApp, the Californian based cloud data services company.

Ludwig, speaking to Security Advisor Middle East at the recent NetApp Insight 2018 event in Barcelona, the cloud data services company’s annual gathering for EMEA, says the automation extends even to ensuring that delivery trucks have fuel to reach businesses that require the drinks.

The programme that Ludwig has been involved with “didn’t find any security problems” linked specifically to the use of the cloud.

However, the recently released “Cloud Adoption and Risk Report 2019” from the cybersecurity provider McAfee highlights a range of cloud-related potential security issues.

A key finding of the report is how many files with sensitive data are now being shared in the cloud, with the number having increased 53 percent year-onyear. What is behind this increase?