Security Threats in Cloud Computing

This report provides a detailed analysis of the methodology and security threats of cloud computing. It discusses the challenges and future research areas in this technology. It also offers solutions to mitigate the risks.

Security Threats in Cloud Computing
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ABSTRACT – The main motive of this report is to deal with the
methodology and security threats of cloud computing. This
methodology is said to be an effective technology which tends to be
a popular option regarding the businesses as well as for people for
effective savings of cost, the increased rate of productivity,
efficiency as well as speed providing the users with high
performance and enhanced security. Thus the report will focus on
the technology as well as the relevant applications that uses this
technology to facilitate their consumers. However, the technology
has some drawbacks too which are identified as well assessed
within the report with clear analysis. The report will further deal
with the challenges that persist in the technology. There are certain
parts of the report that addresses the main critical issues associated
with the technology. Moreover, the report will give a clear
reflection about the issues that still persist with the implementation
of this technology. The last part of the report also identifies some
future research area within the cloud computing technology. Hence
it can be said that the overall report provides a critical assessment
and overview regarding the overall cloud computing technology
assessing all the main aspects and terminologies.
INTRODUCTION
Cloud computing is said to be the procedure of storing as
well as accessing of the programs and data all over the
Internet rather than storing the data in the hardware of a
specific computer. This term involves the delivery of the
services that are hosted all over the internet (Ali, Khan &
Vasilakos, 2015). The cloud computing holds the resources
such as the tools as well as the applications that are likely to
be storage of data, the databases, servers as well as software
and networking of data resources. However, there are certain
security threats that are associated with the usage of this
technology. This report will deal with the detailed analysis of
these threats as well as will provide a clear overview of the
preventive measures regarding this threats.
TECHNOLOGY OVERVIEW
The name of the technology itself justifies that the
information is stored remotely in the cloud that can be
accessed by any individual or a business from anywhere. This
technology facilitates the users with the storage of the data on
remote servers of the organization that are providing the
cloud services. This enhances the consumer’s data to be
stored in a much vast space in the cyberspace thus allowing
safekeeping of the data as well as ease of access of those data
by the users of this technology (Botta et al., 2016). This
technology can be used in both the forms that is private as
well as public. The public services of the clouds allows the
consumers to use the services of the technology for free
whereas the private services are provide to a limited amount
of people thus facilitating them with the advanced features of
the technology. There is also a third option regarding the
technology of the cloud computing which combines both
features of the public as well as private features present
within this technology. There are certain functions that are
facilitated by the usage of the cloud computing services. These
includes Email, analysis of data, streaming of audio as well as
videos , creation as well as testing of innovated applications
and many more.
RELEVANT APPLICATIONS
The categories of the applications regarding the cloud
computing technology is described in the following table.
Categories Applications
Online Storage of Files Hotfile, megaupload,
mediafire and many more.
Software for photo editing Pixlr, Picnik
Software for digital video Hulu
Web Application regarding
Antivirus Cloud Antivirus
Software for E commerce
The e-application based on
the cloud technology helps
to understand as well as
focus on the data storage in
the cloud.
The above stated applications are used by many of the
users as well as business organizations to deal with the various
types of works that they are associated with. By using this type
of applications the users are very well facilitated with the
effective storage of the within the remote servers of the
organization that are very reliable and easy to access from
anywhere (Chang & Ramachandran, 2015).
CHALLENGES IN THE TECHNOLOGY
The focus of this technology is to enable the global access
to the users as well as business to the wide pool of the
resources that are stored in the relevant remote servers of any
organization that provides the cloud services to their
consumers (Aljawarneh & Yassein, 2016). There are mainly six
identified challenges that can occur with the cloud computing
technology, which are briefly explained as follows.
Cost: The technology is quite affordable regarding an
individual whereas to meet with the business needs of an
organization it might get expensive (Rittinghouse & Ransome,
2016). Moreover, for small scale industries or project there
will be a lot of expense regarding the transfer of data to the
public clouds.
The reliability of service provider: The capacity as well as
the capability of a cloud technology service provider is also a
important criteria in association with the price regarding
execution of the technology. The service provider sometimes
may not be reliable and might not be available at certain
times. This will turn out to be an important challenge as faced

by the business as well as for an individual who are trying to
access the technology.
Downtime: This might be stated as one of the most
significant shortcomings in the cloud technology. None of the
cloud service providers can assure that there will no sign of
downtime within their technology. Hence, the organizations or
an individual that are using internet connection that are not
reliable, they should emphasize on the infrastructure before
using cloud services (Hussein & Khalid, 2016).
Security of Password: The supervision of password security
plays an important role in the security of cloud technology.
The access of the cloud servers are to be protected by security
passwords (Samarati et al., 2016). In case this is not done in a
proper manner then there are high chances of the data to be
lost as well as corruption of the data sets present within the
cloud.
Privacy of data: Sensitive as well as personal information,
which is stored within the cloud, may be defined confidentially
without the knowledge of any other persons that are present
within the network (Sen, 2015). Therefore, the businesses
must come with the new innovative ideas to maintain the
passwords effectively as well as securely.
Lock-in of vendors: Accepting a cloud computing technology
is much easier than to leave it. This is because the alternate
providers can provide expensive cloud storage or even no
cloud service provider.
GAP IDENTIFICATION
One of the most important gap that may be identified
regarding the increased attention that is addressed by the
firmware of the cloud technology systems. The service
providers of the cloud do not address this. With the ongoing
growth in the technological advancements in the fields of the
cloud, computing it can be said that it will be the ability of the
cloud to provide PaaS infrastructure in the form of the private
as well as strong middleware, which in turn will integrate the
capacities for the application that run on this technology
(Almorsy, Grundy & Müller, 2016). Moreover, the innovative
products offered from the cloud service providers may
recognize certain issues regarding the network performance.
The resource allocation in the network layer might be a big
gap regarding the access of the data. This in turn affects the
flexibility of the data that is being stored in the database of
the cloud computing methodology. Most of the economical
enterprises are likely to be using this technology for business
enhancement. However, the smaller businesses are not well of
using the cloud services to enhance their business, as the
implementation of the cost could be much more than their
total business exposure.
AREAS ADDRESSED
In this report the areas that are focused with respect to the
cloud computing technology are the storage areas as well as
the implementation cost. Moreover, the issues associated or
the challenges faced due to this technology are being
addressed in this report. These areas are critically assessed
and then the probable solutions are provided in order to
mitigate them (Chan, Kuo & Ramachandran, 2016). These
areas are said to be the most functional areas in accordance to
the cloud computing mechanisms as this critically focuses on
the advantages as well as the risk factors associated with the
cloud computing architecture.
AREAS UNADDRESSED
The areas that were not focused in the concept of cloud
computing architecture was the interception of the processes
by how the data is effectively stored in the remote servers of
the organization that are providing the cloud services to the
individuals as well as to the business. Moreover, the alternate
way to reduce the costs of the small-scale enterprises to
enhance their usage of the cloud-based systems are not
appropriately mentioned in the overall report. This area must
have been addressed in regards for the effective as well as
enhanced services that are to be provided to the customers.
However, the data security in a cloud-based system is said to
be one of the most important feature that should be focused
in regards to the cloud computing technology.
CRITICAL ISSUES
The major issues that are confronted by the usage of the
cloud computing technology are described below:
 Security issue: The main issue that is being faced
regarding the cloud computing technology is about
the security if the information that is being stored in
the cloud network by the organization or the
individual (Elzamly et al., 2017). The enhanced
security features must be embedded within the cloud
computing technology so that the information can be
securely stored with the help of this technology.
 Cost issue: The cloud computing technology must be
provided with less cost to the users (Yi, Qin & Li,
2015). This will help the consumers to use the
technology in a much enhanced as well as effective
manner and can be used in small projects or small
scale enterprises.
 Compliance: One of the major risk that an
organization faces regarding the cloud computing
technology is the compliance issue (Jouini & Rabai,
2019). This is mainly faced by the organization when
they try to move their resource data to the cloud for
better security purposes.
 Performance: This issue may be depicted by the
organizations if they carry on to keep a big amount of
data as well as when there is a network issue faced by
an organization when they try to access their saved
data in the cloud (Singh, Jeong & Park, 2016).
FUTURE RESEARCH DIRECTIONS AND CONCLUSION
This can be well said from the above report that there are
certain drawbacks in the cloud computing technology that
needs to be mitigated for the enhance usage of the
technology. Many organizations are thriving forward for the
use of cloud computing methodology in their workplace. This
is due to the maximum benefits provided by this technology
for the advancement of the business. So the issues associated
with ten technology must be mitigated for the effective usage
of this technology.
REFERENCES

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