In one of his last acts before stepping down, US President Donald Trump signed an executive order aimed at preventing foreign players from using cloud computing services to launch attacks against the country. Under the order, the Commerce Department will have six months to set new rules for US-based infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS) providers that will need to more closely verify customer identities. foreign. The order, which is said to have lasted for two years, would give the US government the right to ban the sharing of cloud services with foreign players suspected of using them for cyberattacks. It can also apply to entire jurisdictions, not just individuals and organizations.
Cloud computing industry in the United States
According to the Trump administration, an unwanted trend has emerged of US cloud computing resources being purchased on behalf of foreign cybercriminals, who use them to launch attacks against US-based entities. What we've seen in this space is one individual will lease thousands of pieces of this infrastructure within the United States and sell it to actors who will then abuse it,” explained one senior. official. " gives the Secretary of Commerce the ability to say, "There's no reason you should continue to have access to the nation's products." "The United States is home to the three largest cloud computing platforms in the world: Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure and Google Cloud. However, the influence of the "big three" extends far beyond American shores. The latest data from Statista suggests that AWS has a 33% global market share, followed by Azure at 18% and Google Cloud at 9%. The closest non-US rivals are Alibaba Cloud (6%) and China-based Tencent Cloud (2%). Another recent report, from the Synergy Research Research Group, claims that European cloud companies have a hemorrhagic market share relative to their US competitors since 2017, when cloud spending in the region reached nearly $7 trillion. While rogue foreign players have other options available to them in the field of cloud computing, barring them from doing business with US providers kills the current cream of the crop. However, President-elect Joe Biden is not required to abide by executive orders issued by his predecessor. It remains to be seen if the new president will inherit the same position on the subject. via Reuters