Amazon Web Services, a subsidiary of the electronic commerce website Amazon (NASDAQ: AMZN), will expand its services to the U.S. intelligence community. On Monday, November 20th, the cloud computing provider announced a new service exclusively for the U.S government called the Amazon Web Services Secret Region. The new cloud unit will contain all classified secrets and projects by the government, some of which will require top secret security clearance.
This is not Amazon's first time with data-cloud computing for the federal government. Amazon was the first to release a cloud computing service for the public sphere called AWS GovCloud in 2011. Following its success, Amazon created a $600 million contract with the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and other top-secret agencies in 2013. The contract, formerly referred to as the "spook cloud contract" or AWS Top Secret Region project, was finally implemented in 2014. Through Amazon, the CIA has expanded their own private cloud computing system that holds a large, private mass of classified information. Previously, the AWS Top Secret Region project was linked to AWS GovCloud and only available to intelligence agencies. But the new Secret Region will be a separate cloud computing service that will allow the entire range of data classifications, from unclassified to top secret, to be instantly accessible by all government agencies.
Vice President of Amazon Web Services Teresa Carlson praised the Secret Region service, stating, "The U.S. Intelligence Community can now execute their missions with a common set of tools, a constant flow of the latest technology and the flexibility to rapidly scale with the mission." Carlson expanded on the benefits of the private cloud computing service, asserting that "ultimately, this capability allows more agency collaboration, helps get critical information to decision makers faster, and enables an increase in our Nation's Security."
The Secret Region is not the only government cloud computing service currently on the market. Last month, Microsoft's (NASDAQ: MSFT) Government Cloud, titled Azure Government Secret, announced it will provide a platform for agencies and associated companies to maintain "secret" data. Google (NASDAQ: GOOGL) may also release their own cloud computing service for government use in the future. The multinational technology company currently provides G Suite, a cloud computing platform, for all types of consumers.
While the new top secret cloud service is an exciting and innovative approach towards the mobile organization of government data, the dangers of storing private data in the Amazon cloud service is evident. This past May, an engineer mistakenly left approximately 60,000 files - some of which were apart of a Pentagon program - on a public Amazon server. Later, it was revealed that the engineer's credentials were also apart of the server, and even left unprotected with no password. Likewise, about 1.8 billion posts from social media and forums were found on an insecure Amazon server. A number of the files were also the property of the Pentagon. Given that classified government data was mistakenly left on public or other easily accessible servers, Amazon will have to avoid similar mistakes that pose a threat to national security as a whole.