More reason to be wary of Google, cloud computing

That big December cyberattack on Google? It hit its internal password system, which, per the story, is designed to let both users and employees sign in with their password just once to run a number of services.

Even though individual users' passwords do not appear to be stolen, this is still serious:

The theft leaves open the possibility, however faint, that the intruders may find weaknesses that Google might not even be aware of, independent computer experts said.

And, hence, worries about the security of cloud computing, a concern I've already seen mentioned in tech magazines, since cloud computing hasn't really been "scaled up" yet.

The new details seem likely to increase the debate about the security and privacy of vast computing systems such as Google’s that now centralize the personal information of millions of individuals and businesses. Because vast amounts of digital information are stored in one place, popularly referred to as “cloud” computing, a single breach can lead to disastrous losses.

And, who knows if this is over yet?

Rodney Joffe, a vice president at Neustar, a developer of Internet infrastructure services, said, “It’s obviously a real issue if you can understand how the system works.” Understanding the algorithms on which the software is based might be of great value to an attacker looking for weak points in the system, he said.

Folks that's why I don't use Google Apps, Docs, Chrome etc.