In our last “cloud fact or fiction” post, we pointed out that hosting your clinical trial software in the cloud gives companies unparalleled access to their data due to high system uptime and ease of access to systems. This time around, we’ll discuss cloud security.
Claim #5: Clinical and safety data in cloud systems is not secure.
Fact or fiction? Fiction.
The security of hosted data is one of our industry’s biggest fears, but it is largely unfounded. While it is difficult to secure data per industry standards in certain “cloud” environments, hosting data in private clouds is easy to secure. How?
- Hosted systems can live behind firewalls that require VPN to access
- Hosted systems can be securely deployed over the Internet using SSL or similar encryption
- Hosted systems can be integrated with an organization’s Active Directory authentication process
- Hosted systems can be configured to meet each organization’s data security policies and procedures
If concerns about security are still holding you back from experiencing the myriad benefits that can come from the cloud, I urge you to schedule a discussion between your QA/Validation department and an experienced hosting vendor in the industry.
For our next “cloud fact or fiction” post, we will cover the ins and outs of migrating data to systems in the cloud. To read past posts in this series, click here.
