Aftermath Of WikiLeaks Flap Underscores Vulnerabilities Of The Cloud

Denial-of-service attacks in the aftermath of the WikiLeaks incident show the vulnerabilities agencies face as they shift to cloud computing, say several cybersecurity specialists.

The online infrastructures underpinning WikiLeaks and the cloud -- where the White House wants to move government information technology systems -- depend on third-parties to stay up and running. This month, Amazon, a cloud provider, kicked the WikiLeaks website off its servers and online payment service PayPal stopped processing funds for the site, after determining the organization's release of troves of classified documents violated acceptable use policies. While cloud service providers are unlikely to turn off federal users' IT systems, other reliability threats lurk in the cloud that firms formerly associated with WikiLeaks now know all too well.