It seems as though the move to cloud computing is inevitable, at least for parts of the enterprise. It’s gaining in popularity, and it has the incredible attraction of being cheap—which makes cloud services a favorite for corporate bean counters. But are those bean counters listening to their security guys before deploying it?

There are still security and privacy concerns to be addressed. According to a recent Unisys poll, security and privacy concerns are still big barriers to cloud computing. The survey asked, “What do you see as your greatest barrier to moving to the cloud?” And 51 percent cited security and data privacy. Twenty-one percent cited integration of cloud applications with existing systems as a potential barrier.

To their credit, vendors of cloud-based systems of all sorts, email and otherwise, are tackling the problem with new layers of security. But will it be enough? A Dark Reading article interviewed the former black hat known as “mafiaboy”, who claims that cloud computing will ultimately cause a “meltdown” of the Internet due to the inherent security vulnerabilities. According to the reformed hacker, cloud computing done on a massive scale will transform the Internet into a “hacker haven.”

We don’t know if his claims of cloud computing hastening the demise of the Internet as we know it aren’t a bit exaggerated, but he makes some very good points, not the least of which is that today’s hackers are for the most part, in it for the money, as opposed to yesterday’s hackers who saw it sometimes as a challenge or a game. And the lure of ill-gotten gains is powerful indeed. And with everything in the cloud, the Internet will become more of an attractive nuisance than it already is. For a criminal, cloud computing will just be too much of a temptation.