Many security professionals are skeptical about cloud-based services and infrastructure. But it’s a skepticism we’ve seen before, when a new computing paradigm encounters a suspicious—if not downright hostile—mindset (data-center-centric) and installed base. In this paper we will discuss some of the general philosophies and perspectives that will assist anyone who wants to securely leverage the benefits the cloud by using its strengths to overcome issues that have traditionally been labeled as weaknesses.