Guidelines on Security and Privacy in Public Cloud Computing (NIST)

NIST SP 800-144 provides an overview of the security and privacy challenges for public cloud computing and gives recommendations that organizations should consider when outsourcing data, applications, and infrastructure to a public cloud environment.


Cloud computing can and does mean different things to different people. The common characteristics most share are on-demand scalability of highly available and reliable pooled computing resources, secure access to metered services from nearly anywhere, and dislocation of data from inside to outside the organization. While aspects of these characteristics have been realized to a certain extent, cloud computing remains a work in progress. This publication provides an overview of the security and privacy challenges pertinent to public cloud computing and points out considerations organizations should take when outsourcing data, applications, and infrastructure to a public cloud environment.

Download (505 KB)




NIST SP 800-145 restates the existing NIST cloud computing definition as a formal NIST publication.