Despite the promised benefits of cloud computing, many organizations have concerns that stand in the way of greater adoption. Chief among the obstacles are fears about security and data loss.

How secure is the cloud compared to an on premise server environment? What security measures offer the greatest data protection – and how do you evaluate prospective SaaS providers’ security offerings?

Download “SaaS Computing: Overcoming Security and Service Concerns” from IDC to find out.

As the SaaS market continues to boom, many providers have made substantial efforts to strengthen security. In addition, organizations can enter into service-level agreements (SLAs) with providers that address specific security concerns.

SaaS providers are leveraging a slew of techniques to enforce security among users, such as using session management software and blocking password autofill macros in browsers. Providers are also building technologies into their interfaces, such as identity authentication that can help reduce security threats from phishing by monitoring user log-ins from unfamiliar locations and machines – as well as creating challenge and response schemas to verify human users versus machine-based attacks.

Application access is also of concern to some organizations, but access is really no different with SaaS than with applications in the outsourced service producer model. Service-level agreements (SLAs) are in place to provide business users with a minimum level of access, typically at the “three nines” level – which means that the application is available at least 99.9% of the time. And some providers offer even greater access and availability than three nines on a tiered price plan.

Organizations can take heart in the fact that SaaS and SaaS-like services have been used for 20 years – and the equivalent of the U.S. annual gross domestic product crosses the worldwide internet every two days. These facts provide a proof of concept for using SaaS services securely. Learn more in this compelling executive brief from IDC.