The National Institute of Standards and Technology recently finalized its first set of guidelines, which looks to provide an overview on the security and privacy facing public cloud computing.

"Public cloud computing and the other deployment models are a viable choice for many applications and services,” said publication co-author Tim Grance. “However, accountability for security and privacy in public cloud deployments cannot be delegated to a cloud provider and remains an obligation for the organization to fulfill."

Guidelines by the NIST report, titled Guidelines on Security and Privacy in Public Cloud Computing, include carefully planning out privacy and security in the cloud, understanding the environment offered by the cloud provider, maintaining accountability for the company's privacy and security and making sure the cloud satisfies what the organization wants from a privacy standpoint.

In addition, the NIST guide includes recommendations for what to do when outsourcing applications, infrastructure and data to a public cloud computing environment in an effort to make the transition safer.