CSA’s mission
The Cloud Security Alliance (CSA) is a nonprofit organization formed to promote security assurance best practices in the cloud and provide education on the use of cloud computing to help secure all other forms of computing.
CSA comprises subject matter experts from an array of disciplines, united in our objectives:
Promote understanding among cloud providers and customers around security requirements and attestation of assurance.
Promote independent research into cloud security best practices.
Launch awareness campaigns and educational programs on appropriate uses of the cloud and cloud security solutions.
Create consensus lists of issues and guidance for cloud security assurance.
How CSA Was Born
A meeting of minds
The concept of the Cloud Security Alliance was born at the ISSA CISO Forum, a security practitioners’ conference, in November 2008. There, Jim Reavis and Nils Puhlmann outlined the initial mission and strategy of the CSA, and soon after formalized its founding in a series of meetings that included industry leaders such as Dave Cullinane, Philippe Courtot, Alan Boehme, Izak Mutlu, Jay Chaudhry, Christofer Hoff, Paul Kurtz, and Jean Pawluk.
To create our initial work product for the 2009 RSA Conference, we reached out to dozens of volunteers from the information security community to research, author, edit, and review our first white paper. We are proud to recognize these individuals as founding members.
CSA welcomes all interested practitioners as members of this organization going forward to continue our important work.
Working Groups
As a pioneer in cloud-delivered security services, Zscaler is proud to share its cloud adoption expertise and best practices with security practitioners. Zscaler leads the CSA’s Portability & Interoperability and Application Security working groups.
About CSA
About CSA
CSA is the world’s leading organization dedicated to defining and raising awareness of cloud security best practices. CSA harnesses subject matter expertise from industry practitioners, associations, governments, and more to offer cloud security-specific research, education, certification, events, and products.
CSA’s activities, knowledge, and extensive network benefit providers, customers, governments, entrepreneurs, and the assurance industry, providing a forum in which diverse parties can work together to create and maintain a trusted cloud ecosystem. CSA’s comprehensive research program collaborates with industry, higher education, and government on a global basis.
CSA released the Security Guidance for Critical Areas of Focus in Cloud Computing, a practical, actionable roadmap for adopting the cloud safely and securely, in 2009. The following year, CSA launched the industry’s first cloud security user certification, the Certificate of Cloud Security Knowledge (CCSK), the benchmark for professional competency in cloud security, along with the Cloud Controls Matrix (CCM), the world’s only meta-framework of cloud-specific security controls mapped to leading standards, best practices, and regulations.
Expand your network and further your education by connecting with CSA and our community of experts online. Discuss the latest in cloud security with other security professionals from around the world in Circle, CSA’s exclusive community tailored to cloud security, and stay connected and further your education for free in CSA webinars.
Customer Review
“CSA’s collaboration with Zscaler goes all the way back to the beginning. ... Jay Chaudhry’s generosity to provide some seed funding and, more importantly, to provide key industry insight into future trends was fundamental in shaping our trajectory. Zscaler is among a very select number of companies without whom CSA would likely not exist today.”
