Recent Twitter Breach Raises Security Concerns for Los Angeles's Plan to Use Google Apps

Security concerns over a multimillion dollar proposal have been raised by Los Angeles Officials in regards to internet based services for confidential government information including police records and email.

It would appear that the recently reported attack on Twitter personnel, which resulted in the theft of over 300 private documents, has reached the ears of Los Angeles officials. They are now questioning their decision to move government e-mail and other records onto Google's hosted Web service Google Apps.

"Anytime you go to a Web-based system, that puts you just a little further out than you were before," LA City Councilman Tony Cardenas told The Associated Press. "Drug cartels would pay any sum of money to be aware of our progress on investigations."

It was just in May that the Twitter breach occurred. The impact of the whole situation did not become public knowledge until just last week when the attacker, calling himself Hacker Croll, fed the data he had stolen to the blog company TechCrunch for unrestricted posting.

Afterwards, Twitter executives noted that there was not a security vulnerability within Google Apps. Basically, the vulnerability was a result of linking personal and work emails and reusing passwords on several accounts making it easy to guess security questions. In the end result, it allowed outsiders to steal personal and confidential information to be exposed and posted to online services.

It's no small wonder why government officials may be a little hesitant about placing all their classified data onto one Web service.

"Government agencies at all levels, including federal, state, and city, are looking to cloud computing as a way to advance innovation while decreasing costs," a Google spokesperson said in a statement.

"We agree that security is a very important consideration for any organization considering cloud computing, and we've been working very closely with the City of Los Angeles to address any questions and concerns government officials or citizens might have," the statement said. "Security is at the core of how we design Google Apps, and as the City of Los Angeles' evaluation report notes, the proposed cloud computing system is an improvement over the level of security currently in place. It also provides other benefits of cloud computing, such as increased innovation at reduced cost, which is driving the city's request for a cloud solution to suit its IT needs."

It remains to be seen whether these words will be enough to calm any doubts in officials minds about utilizing the Google Apps Web service, or if this might be the turning point that leaves Google struggling to rectify their somewhat strained reputation when it comes to software security.