RSA chief: Use cloud technologies to secure it

RSA chief Art Coviello kicked off his company's flagship  conference by urging the security industry to use cloud computing to make it more secure.

Coviello usually kicks off the conference with a big theme and the 2010 keynote wasn't any different. Coviello said that the aim was to leverage "the technologies enabling the cloud to secure it" to make life easier for the IT department, government and private sector.

In a nutshell, Coviello argued that security wonks need a bigger vision to adapt to cloud computing. "We in the security industry need a more elevated and expansive vision connected to the huge wave of IT transformation under way right now that is cloud computing," he said.

Among the key points from Coviello's talk:

• Trust is a big hindrance to cloud computing adoption and the industry isn't doing enough to improve security.
• The cloud can create security processes that work from the inside out instead of building endpoint barriers to prevent hackers from doing damage.
• Monitoring and controlling changes will be critical for cloud security.
• More attention needs to be paid to securing virtualized environments. The process to harden virtual infrastructure must start now.