Research Project: Security Threats in Cloud Computing and Methods

This research project delves into the critical domain of security threats within cloud computing environments. The abstract highlights the increasing importance of cloud technology for data sharing and the corresponding rise in security vulnerabilities. The report identifies key threats such as data breaches, account hijacking, and malicious insiders, emphasizing their impact on organizations. It provides an overview of cloud computing's benefits, including cost reduction and scalability, while also examining the relevant technologies and applications. The research explores preventive methods like data encryption, secure servers, and intrusion prevention systems. Challenges faced during the research, such as accessing specific resources and the limitations of existing literature, are also discussed. The project concludes with suggestions for future research, including analyzing recent case studies and expanding the scope of security threat analysis. The report is well-referenced, drawing from various academic sources and online resources to support its findings, and is now available on Desklib for students.

Research Project

Table of Contents
ABSTRACT.....................................................................................................................................1
Overview of topic............................................................................................................................1
Relevant technologies and applications of those technologies........................................................2
Highlighting challenges in research area.........................................................................................3
Future Research Directions..............................................................................................................4
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................5

TOPIC: Security threats in cloud computing and preventive methods
ABSTRACT
Enhancement in information and technology gives birth to hybrid and remote sharing
data and information. Cloud computing is the paradigm of information technology that enable
ubiquitous access to shared pools of configurable system resources. Cloud computing aid in
enhancing the sharing of files and data effectively and efficiently. Albeit of its efficacy, there are
various threats, issues and challenges which are associated with the cloud computing. In this
context, the motive of preparing research project is to analyse the security threats which are
related with the cloud computing and to identify the preventive methods in order to eliminate the
threats. With the evolution of technologies, cloud computing is one of the most trending and
essential technology which has been used by many medium to small scale IT and banking
organisations in order to transmit data and information to another person or organisation. Though
in order to acquire the important data, cyber criminals have developed numerous type of worms,
malware, viruses which hacks the system and criminals obtain the password. Data breach,
Hijacked accounts, malicious insiders are some threats that affects the cloud computing. In order
to analyse these threats and identify the preventive measure, the researcher will prepare the
research project.
Overview of topic
Cloud computing is the delivery of the computing services such as servers, database,
software, analytics, storage and more with the help of internet. From tiny start-ups to global
corporations, government agencies to non profit organisation are using cloud computing in order
to enhance their productivity and profitability (Islam, Manivannan and Zeadally, 2016). With the
raise in technological development and funding, each and every organisation have implemented
integrated information technological system and structure. Through this, the management were
able to transfer vital files, database and information to other client organisation or subsidiaries
effectively and efficiently. With easy access to information and infinite availability of materials
available on internet regarding hacking and data breaching, cyber crime has been sustainably
increases. In Australia the cyber security threats has been doubled in year 2016 (Almorsy,
Grundy and Müller, 2016). This implied that more preventive measures are required in order to
enhance the security of the cloud computing. Cloud computing helps in enabling the business to
exchange vital information and data efficiently. Despite of security threats and issues, cloud
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computing has provided ample of benefits and advantages. Cloud computing obliterates the
capital expense of purchasing hardware and setting it up in order to transmits the information.
Now the management can create their account online and utilise it in order to share information
with each other. In comparison with old traditional approach, cloud computing is rapid and fast.
With high speed internet connection, one can access to the shared files or data rapidly
(Rittinghouse and Ransome, 2016). The benefits of cloud computing services include the ability
to scale elastically. Thus, these are some benefits which are associated with cloud computing that
helps the business organisation to sustain in the competitive environment by raising their
productivity and profitability.
Relevant technologies and applications of those technologies
In recent years cloud computing has attracted both academic and industrial entities. It is
visualised as a diversion in computing paradigm in which computing services are delivered and
retain on demand over the global scale network. According to Krutz and Vines (2010) cloud
computing posses immense potential to transform Information and Technological industries and
changes the manner in which Enterprise IT operates. In the advance technological era, cloud
computing is considered as one of the best and efficient source to transfer important data, files
and folders from one person to many. However, in light of this statement Shaikh and Haider
(2011) argued that cloud services and security concerns inherited from their underlying
technologies might negatively impact on an enterprise if they are not properly management.
Subashini and Kavitha (2011) elaborated the three main types of cloud service infrastructure
which are (IaaS), (PaaS) and (Saas). These service infrastructure differs from one another and are
used by the enterprise to fulfil their precise purpose. The cloud computing are growing rapidly
and new services are emerging seemingly daily. It not only helps the enterprises by reducing
their efforts but also aid in saving both their cost and time. According to Catteddu (2010) though
organisations has implemented various security measures within their systems, there are still
many loopholes through which hackers and cyber criminals hijacked their account and acquire
the vital and essential information of the organisation. As per the report of Cloud Security
Alliance, there are numerous threats to cloud computing which the management of enterprises
needs to look after (Popović and Hocenski, 2010). Data Breaches is one of the most common
threat an enterprise faced (Wilson, 2016). Data breach is the theft of vital, confidential or
sensitive data of an enterprise. In May 2014, eBay database got compromised by a team of
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hackers who have stolen the names, address and other credentials of 145 million users. This was
one of the biggest data breach in history. The management identified that the hackers have
hacked the database by using names and credentials of three employees working in the
organisation. Sabahi (2011) argued that weak identity, credentials and access management
allows cyber criminals to hijacked the database of the organisation. In 2012, famous cloud
service provider Dropbox faced data breach where the management conformed that 68 million
users data got compromised. Hackers acquired email address and passwords of the users and got
access to 5 gigabytes of data (7 Most Infamous Cloud Security Breaches, 2017). Zissis and
Lekkas (2012) elucidated that an insider threat is a malicious threat to an organisation which
comes from people within the organisation. Insider threats are deliberate attempts by any
employee of organisation to harm the systems and IT infrastructure with the motive to sell the
vital information of the company (Takabi, Joshi and Ahn, 2010). The security threat is unable to
detect and in order to prevent it, the management of the organisations needs to restrict access to
IT systems to limited personnel only.
Preventive methods
Cloud computing are growing rapidly and with the vast investment in research and
development, new and improved methods of security has been developed by the IT
organisations. According to Armbrust and et.al. (2010) management of business organisation
needs to take responsibility and accountability to install effective and efficient data encryption
system so that data breach can be prevented. Servers like Carbonite, CrashPlan and BackBlaze
are secure servers which helps to store terabytes of data efficiently. As per Lee (2012)
management further needs to back up the data in the secure and restricted area so that insider
threats can be prevented. IBM is one of the top-notch organisation which provides effective
security and preventive measures to other organisation regarding cloud computing. IBM provides
Intrusion Prevention System (IPS) to the organisation which automatically blocks malicious
attacks while preserving cloud network and bandwidth availability (IBM Security Network
Intrusion Prevention System 4.6.0. 2018). Chou (2013) said that management of organisations
needs to ensure that the cloud computing network within the organisation has been installed
precisely and has been configured appropriately in order to reduce future risks.
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Highlighting challenges in research area
In order to conduct research on Security threats in cloud computing and preventive methods,
researcher faced few challenges and limitations. In order to obtain precise and detail articles,
researcher required access to the specific websites which was costly. Furthermore, researcher
faced challenge in comprehending the articles found and it consumes lots of time of investigator.
With current literature, researcher founds that authors have concerned limited areas of security
threats as there are many other factors or types of security threats associated with the cloud
computing. Moreover, the preventive methods discovered in the articles were limited as well.
The authors can enhance their research articles by addressing more issues associated with cloud
computing such as Account hijacking, Abuse and nefarious use of cloud services and issues
related with shared technologies. These issues are rising in today's corporate world. The recent
example can be of Facebook (Badshah, 2016). Enormous amount of data has been hacked from
Facebook which compromised millions of its users.
Future Research Directions
In the present study, researcher has discuss few security threats which are associated with
the cloud computing. Cloud computing refers to the process of sharing, transmitting and
exchanging files and data using servers and networks. In this context, researcher has identified
some potential issues which are associated with the cloud computing. Some example of
organisations such as eBay and Dropbox has been provided where the management has suffered
data breach. It was further identified in the research study that hackers and cyber criminals by
using advance technologies and systems can hack unsecured database effectively and efficiently.
Furthermore, preventive measures has been describe in the research paper which can help the
organisations to provide safeguard to their confidential data. Researcher in future can expand his
or her area by analysing recent case of the organisations who have suffered huge loss by using
inappropriate system within the organisation. Researcher can analyse more academic articles and
journals in order to enhance his or her level of knowledge and understanding.
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REFERENCES
Books and Journals
Almorsy, M., Grundy, J., & Müller, I. (2016). An analysis of the cloud computing security
problem. arXiv preprint arXiv:1609.01107.
Armbrust, M., Fox, A., Griffith, R., Joseph, A. D., Katz, R., Konwinski, A., ... & Zaharia, M.
(2010). A view of cloud computing. Communications of the ACM, 53(4), 50-58.
Catteddu, D. (2010). Cloud Computing: benefits, risks and recommendations for information
security. In Web application security (pp. 17-17). Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg.
Chou, T. S. (2013). Security threats on cloud computing vulnerabilities. International Journal of
Computer Science & Information Technology, 5(3), 79.
Islam, T., Manivannan, D., & Zeadally, S. (2016). A classification and characterization of
security threats in cloud computing. Int. J. Next-Gener. Comput, 7(1).
Krutz, R. L., & Vines, R. D. (2010). Cloud security: A comprehensive guide to secure cloud
computing. Wiley Publishing.
Lee, K. (2012). Security threats in cloud computing environments. International journal of
security and its applications, 6(4), 25-32.
Popović, K., & Hocenski, Ž. (2010, May). Cloud computing security issues and challenges.
In MIPRO, 2010 proceedings of the 33rd international convention (pp. 344-349). IEEE.
Rittinghouse, J. W., & Ransome, J. F. (2016). Cloud computing: implementation, management,
and security. CRC press.
Sabahi, F. (2011, May). Cloud computing security threats and responses. In Communication
Software and Networks (ICCSN), 2011 IEEE 3rd International Conference on (pp. 245-
249). IEEE.
Shaikh, F. B., & Haider, S. (2011, December). Security threats in cloud computing. In Internet
technology and secured transactions (ICITST), 2011 international conference for (pp. 214-
219). IEEE.
Subashini, S., & Kavitha, V. (2011). A survey on security issues in service delivery models of
cloud computing. Journal of network and computer applications, 34(1), 1-11.
Takabi, H., Joshi, J. B., & Ahn, G. J. (2010). Security and privacy challenges in cloud computing
environments. IEEE Security & Privacy, 8(6), 24-31.
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Zissis, D., & Lekkas, D. (2012). Addressing cloud computing security issues. Future Generation
computer systems, 28(3), 583-592.
Online
7 Most Infamous Cloud Security Breaches. 2018 [Online]. Available
through:<https://blog.storagecraft.com/7-infamous-cloud-security-breaches/>
Badshah, N., 2016. Facebook to contact 87 million users affected by data breach. [Online].
Available through:<https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2018/apr/08/facebook-to-
contact-the-87-million-users-affected-by-data-breach>
IBM Security Network Intrusion Prevention System 4.6.0. 2018 [Online]. Available
through:<https://www.ibm.com/support/knowledgecenter/en/SSB2MG_4.6.0/
com.ibm.ips.doc/concepts/landing_page.htm>
Wilson, M., 2016. What are the 12 biggest cloud computing security threats?. [Online].
Available through:<https://www.ibm.com/blogs/cloud-computing/2016/04/01/12-biggest-
cloud-computing-security-threats/>
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