Security threats in cloud computing and preventive methods

This report emphasizes on the security threats of cloud computing and discusses the key prevention methods against cloud platform security threats. It covers an overview of the technology used by cyber criminals to hack the information security of cloud applications, main challenges of the security threats, and proper analysis of the literature review about the security extortions to identify some essential gaps.

Running Head: INFORMATION SECURITY 1
Security threats in cloud computing and preventive methods

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Introduction
Nowadays, with the advancement of technology threats of information security and privacy are
increased. However, at developers’ end several solutions are developed to control this problem
but still more improvement is required. Cloud computing is an IT prototype that allows its users
to access enormous amount of information from the shared pools of resources and high level
services by using a powerful network of the remote servers. With the help of this model, the
retrieval and storage of the huge amount of information from the multiple sources are become
easier and quicker. But cloud platform is not far away from the security threats like other IT
technologies. The purpose of this report is to emphasize on the security threats of cloud
computing. Moreover, the key prevention methods against cloud platform security threats will be
also discussed in this report. The main things to cover in this report are overview of the
technology which is used by the cyber criminals to hack the information security of cloud
applications, main challenges of the security threats and proper analysis of the literature review
about the security extortions to identify some essential gaps will be covered in this report.
Overview of Technology
Nowadays, hackers are using several vulnerable techniques to violate the security of the cloud
computing. Some widespread methods that cause security threats for the cloud users are virus
attacks, unauthorized access of the information by hacking the login credentials of the system
that is connected with the cloud platform and DDoS attacks etc. Virus or malware attacks are
very much harmful for the system, network and databases. Hackers can inject virus into the
networks and systems with the help of vulnerable programming scripts. These scripts are
developed in a way that these can retrieve information from the databases of the system and can
inject virus into it. These scripts execute automatically when these are clicked by the user first

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time. The injected virus spreads into the whole system gradually and slow down the system and
database. Besides this, hacking is a technique which is used by the hackers to access the login
credentials of a particular cloud network system. Although it is not easy to obtain login
credentials if these are kept in a secret form but in case of lack of secrecy, it is easier for
attackers to get the username and password. Additionally, DDoS attack is also implemented by
the cyber-criminals to restrict users for accessing information from the shared pool of resources
by using cloud computing. Here denial of service attack is implemented on the main server in the
shared network and no user can access any information from that server by using different means
of information access. Therefore, these critical technologies are used by hackers for hacking of
information in case of cloud computing.
Relevant Technologies and its Applications
Any kind of security threats small or big are necessary to overcome, otherwise, heavy loss can be
confronted by the users and the developers. This section of report embarks on some relevant
technologies that can be used to control security extortions of cloud computing. On behalf of
previous and latest experiences of developers, some effective technologies are made to resolve
the problem of information security. The first relevant technology is encryption. It is a powerful
way to keep information secure into the databases. Through encryption, developers stores the
information into the database in the encrypted format which is difficult to understand and even
guess. Information also travels from network to network in encrypted format. Therefore, it is
difficult for hackers to identify the information and misuse it. Another essential technology to
protect cloud computing is to use filters to recognize the virus attacks. The recognition of
injected virus is not simple that is why a proxy based architecture is used to get prevention from
attacks like SQL Injection. Proxy based architecture can energetically detects and extracts users’

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input which might be infected by virus attacks. Another powerful and relevant solution to get
protection against security threats of cloud platform is the usage of client based privacy manager.
This privacy manager helps in reduction of the risk of data leakage and loss of privacy of
sensitive data which is processed in the cloud platform. Besides this, some additional privacy
benefits are also provided by client based privacy manager. Transparent Cloud Protection
System is also considered best for controlling the security threats of the cloud computing. The
aim of this protection system is to transparently monitoring the integrity of cloud components. If
these components will be protected then security of database can be maintained for long time.
Furthermore, anti-virus solution can also be used to resolve control security of information. Anti-
virus is a software solution that scan whole information that is transferred from one network to
other network on cloud platform. With the help of scanning, potential viruses can be identified
and can be fixed immediately at users end. There are different types of anti-virus software
available such as Avast, Kaspersky etc. and anyone can be installed into the system easily. While
downloading anti-virus from internet, it will be better to take licensed anti-virus which is
equipped with some advanced features that are not available in without licensed software
solution.
The area of relevant technologies for managing the security threats of cloud computing is wide.
That is why, these are applied at different locations where cloud computing is used. Business
organizations and other industries where cloud platform is in demand, there it is essential to use
above mentioned prevention methods of cloud computing. The implementation of these methods
will help users to maintain confidentiality of the system, databases and network that are used at
their workplaces.

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Challenges of Security Threats of Cloud Computing
Security extortions of cloud computing bring many challenges for its users that are unexpected.
Some common challenges of cloud computing include management of data breaches, insecure
access points and notifications and alerts. According to the Identity Theft Research Center of
USA, the growing percentage of data breaches has become a critical challenge for the cloud
computing and its sensitive data. In previous days, IT developers have had good solutions for
controlling the network infrastructure as well as physical hardware such as firewall. But in the
case of cloud computing some of the controls are hand over to a trusted partner that can maintain
high level of security (Securityintelligence.com, 2018). But key problem here is that it is not easy
to find out right vendor that can provide secure and reliable services to cloud users. That is why,
finding a new vendor for cloud platform is challenging in itself and the issues of data breaches
are increasing frequently. Another challenging factor for cloud users is loss of data. When a large
amount of information is transferred on the cloud platform by users then security becomes the
major concern for cloud developers and users. Data can be lost from the cloud platform through
unintentional deletion, malicious virus attacks and with the execution of DDoS attack. Here
DDoS attack consists of a great threat of stealing and deletion of data. So these are some
essential challenging factors that are commonly faced by the users of cloud computing and must
be resolved at prior basis (Javaid, 2013).
Identification of gaps in the Literature Review
Literature review of the cloud computing provides key information regarding security threats of
the cloud computing and its prevention methods. This information is actually based on the deep
research of the available facts of a particular topic and the collective information from these facts
can be beneficial. I have also read a literature review on cloud computing and its security threats,

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but I found some deficiencies in that literature. Firstly I would like to highlight those issues of
the cloud computing security that are addressed in the literature review properly. These issues
include data confidentiality, data security, trust issue and data locality. Here the issues of data
confidentiality is related to the leakage of the privacy of data. In this literature, this issues if
described properly by describing different situations in which this problem has already occurred.
Moreover, prevention methods of data confidentiality are described here in this literature.
Besides this, data security issue is concerned with the violation of privacy of data by hacking and
phishing attacks that are implemented by hackers. This issue is also addressed appropriately in
the literature review and some prevention methods to control the problem of data security are
also introduced. This available information about these security issues is useful to know by cloud
users to sustain security and privacy of data for long time.
On flip side, some issues of security of cloud computing are not addressed properly and those
issues are of data locality and data integrity. A small overview has provided about these issues
but a proper evaluation is required regarding these two issues.
Views of Critical Issues
In my views, the critical issues of security of cloud computing are virus attacks, tracking of data
location and abusing of authorized cloud users to service provider. The problem of virus attack is
critical because it is difficult to identify virus from systems and databases. Variety of scanning
tools are used by the users to identify that which area is infected with the virus attack. So it is
important to be aware about this critical issue by the experts and must do efforts to get rid of this
problem. Next, issue is concerned with tracking of data. Sometimes, in case of enormous amount
of data processing on cloud platform it becomes critical to identify the actual of source and
destination of data. It is also vulnerable because without knowing about the actual location data

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cannot be restricted to enter into network and connected systems. Hackers always take advantage
of this type of problem. Another critical issue that is too critical to ignore is abusing of
authorized cloud users to the cloud service providers. A cloud user is fully responsible for
controlling some key functions of his or her account on cloud platform. In this case, some users
do not follow the instructions of cloud service providers regarding security and privacy of data
and even ignore them to instruct them. This avoidance leads to poor security and privacy of data.
This issue is not resolved yet. On these discussed issues proper action is required to take by the
cloud experts (Sharma & Trivedi, 2014).
Future Research Directions on the Identified Gaps
The identified gaps in the research of security threats of cloud computing cannot be ignored. An
appropriate explanation about the problems of data locality and data integrity is pre-requisite
requirement. If a user will not have proper awareness about these two issues then it will be
difficult for him to maintain the security of his information. The reason behind the less
explanation of these security issues in the literature is lack of knowledge about them. So, in
future it would be better to use more sources of information to explain the problems of data
locality and integrity. Several journals, books and other online sources are available to collect
information about these critical problems. Besides this, some real life examples can also be used
to describe these identified gaps properly.
Conclusion
To sum up, it can be said that it has become difficult for cloud users or other IT users to identify
security threats easily. They have to use some better techniques to anticipate these threats and to
increase security of networks and systems. Moreover, contemporary prevention methods must be
used to resolve the problems of security and privacy violation of data. Nowadays, hacking and

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phishing attacks have raised up to large extent and small mistake may lead to bad outcomes. That
is why, it is necessary for cloud service providers to use advanced and secured techniques to
protect users data which is transferred through cloud sources from one place to other. At users’
end high level of security is also necessary to maintain because hackers mostly try to access
information from sources that are weak at the level of security.

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References
Securityintelligence.com (2018). Security Challenges in the Cloud Environment. Retrieved from
https://securityintelligence.com/security-challenges-in-the-cloud-environment/
Javaid, M. (2013). Top Threats to Cloud Computing Security. SSRN Electronic Journal. doi:
10.2139/ssrn.2325234
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