Security Threats in Cloud Computing and Preventive Methods

This article discusses the security threats of cloud computing, including unauthorized access by hackers and virus attacks. It also explores preventive methods such as data encryption, anti-virus, firewall, and network monitoring software solutions. The challenges of security threats and gaps in the literature are identified, and future research directions are suggested. The article concludes with the importance of developers being aware of potential security threats and ways to control them for providing quick, reliable, and secure services to customers.

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Security Threats in Cloud Computing and Preventive Methods

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Overview of the Involved Technology
Nowadays, cloud computing is used everywhere in this world for performing several business
related activities. It is considered as a quick and reliable approach to access the information from
the remote databases under a centralized approach. However, some security threats of the cloud
computing have become the major concerns of its users. Unauthorized access of information by
hackers and virus attacks are key security threats of cloud computing. Due to these security
issues, users are worried about the security and privacy of their information that is stored into the
online databases on a cloud network (Rouse, 2018). The main technique that is used by attackers
for violating the security of information is to spread harmful viruses into the system or platform
such as malware. This type of virus is injected into a system through an executable programming
script and it spreads itself into the whole network and system and try to access or damage the
stored information. Besides this, for accessing information from cloud platforms in an
unauthorized way, hackers try to steal the login credentials of another authorized users. By using
these credentials, they can easily login into the particular system and can access information
(Azure.microsoft.com, 2018).
Relevant Technologies and its Applications
To get appropriate outcomes from the cloud platform, its security issues must be resolved at the
prior basis. The main techniques or methods that can be used to get rid of the problem of security
threats of cloud computing are data encryption, use of advanced anti-virus, firewall and network
monitoring software solutions (Harris, 2018). Through encryption, information can be stored into
the database in the form of unknown format which is difficult to identify by the cyber-criminals.
Moreover, anti-virus and firewall solutions can be used to keep virus away from the cloud
network. These anti-virus must be installed properly into the system, otherwise proper scanning

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and identification of the bugs will not be possible. An anti-virus can scan whole network and
system at a time and can provide list of infected areas that can be fixed immediately by the users.
Firewall also works in the similar way of antivirus. It blocks unknown entities to enter into the
system. Network monitoring software is required to use for the monitoring of whole network to
identify the unknown entities that can be vulnerable for it. Wireshark is one of network
monitoring solutions that is commonly used. These relevant technologies are already used at the
different workplaces where enormous amount of data is stored, retrieved and transferred through
the cloud platform. Most of the large business organizations use cloud platform to access huge
amount of information at quick basis from different online resources. In this case, security and
privacy maintenance of information is required. Therefore, here cloud security prevention
techniques are essential to use by cloud users. Otherwise, heavy violation of information can
occur.
Challenges of Security Threats of Cloud Computing
Security threats are always considered as a big challenge for IT developers and users. Cloud
users are also affected by the security concerns of information. There are some main challenges
of security and privacy of data at cloud platform. The first challenging factor is related to the
lack of control over the data location (Radford, 2018). Basically, sometimes it is difficult to
manage the tracking of data locations that are sending and receiving data frequently.
Furthermore, in case of shared infrastructure of cloud platform, level of data violation is
increasing. Besides this, in case of cloud computing, a user has control to manage its information
on the cloud platform. In this case, a privileged user does not care for the cloud service provider
and does not follow their instructions properly that are required to maintain the high level data
security and privacy (Cdnetworks.com, 2018).

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Identification of Gaps in the Literature
There are several literature reviews available on the security extortions of the cloud computing.
Here I would embark on some gaps that are found in a literature review regarding security threats
of the cloud platform. First of all, I will discuss those security threats of cloud computing that are
properly addressed in this current literature. These threats are of traffic hijacking, unknown risk
profile, malicious insiders, data breaches and abuse of cloud services. All these extortions are
clearly defined in the current literature review and it is also easier to understand the main reasons
of these threats. On other side, some security threats are not addressed accurately in this
literature. These threats are denial of service attack and spyware attack. These threats are very
much vulnerable for the cloud platform and its databases that contain huge amount of
information in it (Beal, 2018).
In my views, denial of service attack, malware intrusion and data breaches are very critical
security threats that cannot be ignored and must be controlled at users and developers end
whenever occur. The implementation of these security issues may lead to heavy violation of the
cloud network and databases. Therefore, the usage of advanced security solutions is required to
overcome these threats and to provide secured and reliable cloud services to the users (Sharma &
Trivedi, 2014).
Future Research Directions on the Identified Gaps
The gaps in the research of security threats of cloud computing must be covered. In future, it can
be expected that the less defined security problems such as DDoS and spyware attacks will get
more importance in the literature reviews and effective description will also be provided
regarding these extortions of cloud platform. Basically, it is crucial to protect the cloud platform

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and its databases from the all expected or unexpected virus attacks to sustain long term
information security (Soofi & Khan, 2016).
Conclusion
To sum up, it can be said that the activities of cyber-criminals for accessing information from
online sources in unauthorized ways are increasing day by day. It is difficult to anticipate about
their attacks but prevention can be obtained on the behalf of previously occurred security issues.
Therefore, developers must be aware about the potential security threats of cloud computing and
the ways that can be used to control these threats. It is essential for customers’ trust on the cloud
providers for providing quick, reliable and secure services to them.

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References
Rouse (2018). What is cloud computing? - Definition from WhatIs.com. Retrieved from
https://searchcloudcomputing.techtarget.com/definition/cloud-computing
Azure.microsoft.com (2018). What is cloud computing? A beginner’s guide | Microsoft Azure.
Retrieved from https://azure.microsoft.com/en-in/overview/what-is-cloud-computing/
Harris (2018). Security Intelligence - on maintenance. Retrieved from
https://securityintelligence.com/security-challenges-in-the-cloud-environment/
Cdnetworks.com (2018). 5 Key Cloud Security Challenges. Retrieved from
https://www.cdnetworks.com/en/news/5-key-cloud-security-challenges/4208
Radford (2018). Top 5 Cloud Security Challenges Facing the Cloud Adopting Enterprise - Data
Security Blog | Thales e-Security. Retrieved from
https://blog.thalesesecurity.com/2015/04/20/top-5-cloud-security-challenges-facing-the-
cloud-adopting-enterprise/
Beal (2018). Cloud Computing Security Challenges - Webopedia.com. Retrieved from
https://www.webopedia.com/DidYouKnow/Hardware_Software/cloud_computing_securi
ty_challenges.html
Sharma, R., & Trivedi, R. (2014). Literature review: Cloud Computing –Security Issues,
Solution and Technologies. International Journal of Engineering Research, 3(4), 221-
225. doi: 10.17950/ijer/v3s4/408

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Soofi & Khan. (2016). A Review on Various Approaches of Data Security in Cloud Computing.
International Journal of Science and Research (IJSR), 5(6), 878-881. doi:
10.21275/v5i6.nov164248