People still come up to me claiming that cloud computing is nothing but network computing with a “10-dollar word” attached to it. They’re wrong, though: Cloud computing represents a fundamental shift in information technology, in myriad ways. If you’re a security admin — whether for applications or infrastructure — your job is going to change.

A well-known cryptographic attack could be used by hackers to log into Web applications used by millions of users, according to two security experts who plan to discuss the issue at an upcoming security conference.

Novell and Verizon have teamed up to offer cloud-based identity and access management to help companies outsource their applications to the cloud. The companies claim that the move will expedite cloud computing without compromising security.

Cloud security loomed over the RSA Conference this week as a major concern of business, but worry about the threat of cyber war was also strong, with officials from the White House and FBI weighing in to encourage private participation in government efforts to defend information and communications networks.

If you caught “InfoWorld’s top 10 emerging enterprise technologies” in November, you had a running start on our 2010 Technology of the Year Awards. MapReduce, desktop virtualization, I/O virtualization, NoSQL databases, cross-platform mobile application development, and application whitelisting topped our list of high-impact technologies, and not surprisingly, all are represented in our list of top products as well.

Security researchers have spotted the Zeus botnet running an unauthorized command and control center on Amazon’s EC2 cloud computing infrastructure.