Cloud Security Models, Challenges, and Business Organization Report

This report provides a comprehensive literature review on cloud security, exploring various models and solutions designed to address key challenges. It delves into the significance of data security, covering encryption, identity management, and access control, while also addressing compliance and business continuity. The report identifies critical challenges, including data breaches, vulnerabilities, lack of user control, and risks associated with virtualization. Furthermore, it examines the specific challenges faced by business organizations, such as lack of expertise, cost management, performance issues, and segmentation usage. By analyzing these multifaceted aspects, the report offers valuable insights into the current state of cloud security and its implications for businesses, emphasizing the need for robust strategies to mitigate risks and ensure data protection.

Running head: INTRODUCTION TO RESEARCH
Introduction to Research
[Name of the Student]
[Name of the University]
[Author note]

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Table of Contents
Introduction:...............................................................................................................................3
Discussion:.................................................................................................................................3
A. Cloud security models and solutions:................................................................................3
B. Overview of the challenges in cloud security:..................................................................6
C. Challenges Faced by the Business Organizations While Using Cloud.............................7
Conclusion:................................................................................................................................9
References:...............................................................................................................................10

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Introduction:
There are several researches that show that security is one of the key challenges that is
faced in the cloud computing. When considered form the prospect of the customers of cloud
computing it can be explained as the fact that they have little or no control over the data or
the application along with the infrastructure that is involved in the computing as the cloud
services are mainly delivered by the cloud providers and the clouds are accessed by the use of
internet (Benslimane et al., 2014). The cloud service provider explains the concern of security
by considering the vulnerabilities regarding the attacks along with the failure of equipment’s,
software’s or controls. These are the factors which results in the becoming of the cloud
services to serious deterrents for the adaptation of the cloud computing. This report is a
literature review on cloud security (Kaur & Kumar, 2014). The analysis will be helping in
identifying the potential gaps in the cloud services.
Discussion:
A. Cloud security models and solutions:
The theme which has been covered frequently in “Cloud Computing Security” is the
solutions regarding the security along with the related models. The literature helps in
differentiating the solutions for individual security and the models for security. This often
combines several individual solutions for the purpose of addressing a particular issue
regarding cloud security (Liang, 2014). Most of the individual cloud security solution covers
the effective security management. The key aspect of the security management effectively
mainly includes the complete adaptation of all the policies which provides the essential
guidelines regarding the protection of the data assets. This asset is the part of approach
associated with risk assessment along with this it helps in protection of the key assets of the
standards associated with security management (Eken, 2013). Standards like ITIL and ISO

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27001/27002 are involved in this case. There are also other aspects like the monitoring of
events, detection and response to incidents, programs for security training, allocation of
effective resources. Along with this the prospect of the cloud customers is also considered as
a relevant criterion which is mainly used for the right selection of the cloud service providers
(Bernardo, 2013).
The second most import solution regarding threats to cloud security is by encryption
of the data. Encryption also ensures confidentiality of the data along with integrity. All the
encryption process is not equal so it is necessary for the providers along with the customers to
use latest version of the encryption algorithm (Shuijing, 2014). It is also necessary to use the
longer keys that will be straining the capabilities of the processors. The majority of the
researches conducted mainly includes the various presentations and the comparisons of the
various encryption schemes and the algorithms.
After encryption comes the “identity management and access control”. This mainly
covers the technologies along with the processes that are responsible for the supporting of
mechanism related to authentication and authorisation. This is done for the entities so as to
access the resources of the cloud (Kumari, & Nath, 2015). The main focus of this topic is on
the various authentication schemes, management of the identity tools along with schemes
related to access control. Besides this there is advance solution which mainly focuses on the
multiple sources of identity along with focusing on the federate identities of different types of
domains.
There are also solutions regarding the compliance and this mainly refers to the
compliance that exists with different Trusted Computing Group Standards. This trusted
computing systems and the platforms are mainly designed for the purpose of strengthening
the securities in the cloud and gain the trust of the customers (Elhouni et al., 2014). There are

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also other topics like the audit performance. the cloud service providers, customers and the
third parties performs an audit for the purpose of accessing the security of the cloud or the
compliances associated with the security standards and the regulations.
There are also solutions which are related to the availability and the continuity of
business. This solution covers the protections that are provided by the cloud service providers
to protect against any interruptions, data loss or destruction. It also includes the availability of
architecture at a high level. Along with this there is also high reductant and geographical
spread facilities. Besides this there is also plans for backup and robust disaster recovery plan.
Things like the physical security so as to protect from theft vandalism, fire, flood or any kind
of natural disaster is also included in the solutions. Followed by this there is solutions
regarding the legal protection of the cloud customers which is mainly based upon the Service
Level Agreement and on the enforcement of the contract. Under this context it can be stated
that the delivery of the services to the customers by signing them up for the different levels of
security along with the performances that are specified in the SLA (Bouayad et al., 2012).
This SLA also has the ability of specifying the physical location of the storage along with the
auditability of the cloud service providers.
There are also other categories of the solution and this includes things like the multi-
cloud usage so as to reduce the various types of security risks. There is also standardization
of the formats for the importing and exporting of the data so as to improve the probability and
the interoperability that is present between the clouds and the checking of the computing
integrity so as to secure the integrity of the different processing’s.
Security regarding virtualisation mainly includes the solution that mainly supports the
isolation that exists between the virtual machines so as to protect the data against any type of
leaks along with the cross virtual attacks to machines.

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The last thing that I related to the solution mainly includes 36 cloud security models.
This models are mainly theoretical but often this are the combination of the “Identity
management and access control” and “Encryption and key management” which helps in
providing security to data along with comprehensive security and to address the other
security issues (Narula & Jain, 2015).
B. Overview of the challenges in cloud security:
The second theme that are mainly discussed are the challenges in the Cloud Security.
This has been investigated in the cloud computing security. Almost 98 papers discuss on this
topic. The versions that has been adapted for the versions of the security domain
classifications was used for the purpose of classifying the schemes.
Security of the data is the top security challenge and this mainly refers to the
protection of the data from the time of its generation to its transfer, usage along with the
sharing of the data and archival (Daniel, 2014). The key topics that has been discussed in this
topic is the data confidentiality, integrity, data loss and data breach.
Another thing is the vulnerability and this attacks mainly refers to the possible more
frequent and more sophisticated attacks that occur on the cloud computing environments
which hosts a larger amount of data.
The third security challenge is the lack of the control of the user as the cloud
customers have to rely on the providers associated with cloud computing. The topics which
are the key focus are contracting and trust mechanism which is responsible for the protection
of the customer’s data.
The fourth challenge mainly refers to the risks that are associated with virtualisation
due to the fact that the virtualised environments are mainly responsible for the introduction of
new security risks. The main issues that are covered in this topic are attacks on the virtual

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machines long with the hypervisors. This leads to the violations of the access control, DOS
Attacks, under or over utilisation of the virtual machines and physical machines.
Another issue is the availability and the business continuity and this challenges
mainly refers to the protection that the customer needs from the different cloud providers.
This protection is mainly against the service interruptions along with the loss or the
destruction of the data along with a guaranteed recovery of the data in case of any type of
failure.
The next challenges are related to the management of identity along with control
access. This topic cover topic like the protection of confidentiality along with non-
repudiation, supporting of the auditing mechanism and many more.
C. Challenges Faced by the Business Organizations While Using Cloud
The cloud is no longer just an appropriate way to reduce the IT cost related issue in
the organization it is mainly a way of transforming the business, interacting directly with the
customer in real time, gaining advantage in competitive environment and dozens of other
gaming challenges possibilities. Challenges to the cloud adaptation can come in any shape,
severities and size depending upon the structure of the organization who has adopted the
technology. There is no definite challenges list; if there was it would have been outdated as
soon as it was put on paper. The following are the challenges that are most often faced by the
organizations with the implementation of cloud computing (Sugumaran, Murugan &
Kamalraj, 2014).
Lack of resource / expertise: For a long time, security aspect of the cloud was the number
one security issue related to the cloud computing. The organizations are continuously
increasing the work load in the cloud while cloud technology continues to rapidly advance.
This is the main reason organizations are having a hard time in keeping up with the

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advancement of the technology. Also in the field of expertise the demand is growing. These
challenges can be reduced through additional training of development of the staff and IT.
Security issue: The main headline of focus with the security aspect are the data breaches,
broken credentials and compromised credentials, hacked interfaces and proprietary. The
security issues are continuously improving with the perspective of the cloud provider and the
user. In order to ensure that the organizations privacy and security is intact, verifying the
Software as a Service provider has mainly secured the user identity, authentication,
management and access mechanism control in place.
Cost management and containment: The main aim of cloud computing is the save of
business money. With the cloud the organization can easily ramp up its capability of
processing without making large investment in the new hardware. The business on the other
hand can access extra processing through the use of pay-as-you go models from the cloud
provider which is public (Behl, 2011).
Performance: with the movement of a particular business to the cloud it becomes dependent
on the service provider of the cloud. The partnership between the cloud provider and the
business can be involved with innovations which can be related to some security aspect of the
cloud. When the cloud provider is down the business is also down. For a data driven
organization real time access to anything is very important with an inherent lack of control
that comes with the cloud computing.
Segmentation usage and adaptation: Much organization did not have a robust cloud
adaptation strategy in place when they first started to move toward cloud computing. This
resulted in an individual development team using the public cloud for specific application and
project (Yu & Zhu, 2012). These bootstrap environments have fostered full maturation and
integration issue which are:

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 Security configuration of Ad hoc
 Lack of cross team shared learning and resources.
 Shared standard are isolated with cloud projects.
Conclusion:
This paper helps in understanding and identifying the key themes in the cloud
computing security along with the ranks and the related topics. This topic is mainly based
upon the relative importance in the literature. This makes a huge contribution in the research
as well as practices. In regards to the contribution of the research which is based upon the
SLR. This has helped in aggregating the accumulated research on the security in the clouds.
Along with this it is interpreted and a comprehensive picture of the work is provided in this
area. The contribution to the several practices the key security requirements are identified.
Along with the key security threats and the key solutions and key guidelines for cloud
providers. Awareness among customer is also an important feature. Future research can be
expanded to include other databases of articles to avoid a possible bias.

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References:
Behl, A. (2011, December). Emerging security challenges in cloud computing: An insight to
cloud security challenges and their mitigation. In Information and communication
technologies (WICT), 2011 world congress on (pp. 217-222). IEEE.
Benslimane, Y., Plaisent, M., Bernard, P., & Bahli, B. (2014, December). Key Challenges
and Opportunities in Cloud Computing and Implications on Service Requirements:
Evidence from a Systematic Literature Review. In Cloud Computing Technology and
Science (CloudCom), 2014 IEEE 6th International Conference on (pp. 114-121).
IEEE.
Bernardo, D. V. (2013, September). Utilizing security risk approach in managing cloud
computing services. In Network-Based Information Systems (NBiS), 2013 16th
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Bouayad, A., Blilat, A., Mejhed, N. E. H., & El Ghazi, M. (2012, October). Cloud
computing: security challenges. In Information Science and Technology (CIST), 2012
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Daniel, W. K. (2014, April). Challenges on privacy and reliability in cloud computing
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Elhouni, A., ElFgee, E., Isak, M. A., & Ammer, K. B. (2014, January). Study of security
mechanisms implemented in Cloud computing. In Computer Applications and
Information Systems (WCCAIS), 2014 World Congress on (pp. 1-6). IEEE.

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Kaur, K., & Kumar, N. (2014, December). Smart grid with cloud computing: Architecture,
security issues and defense mechanism. In Industrial and Information Systems
(ICIIS), 2014 9th International Conference on (pp. 1-6). IEEE.
Kumari, M., & Nath, R. (2015, February). Security concerns and countermeasures in cloud
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Narula, S., & Jain, A. (2015, February). Cloud computing security: Amazon web service.
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Sugumaran, M., Murugan, B. B., & Kamalraj, D. (2014, February). An architecture for data
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Yu, T. T., & Zhu, Y. G. (2012, October). Research on cloud computing and security.
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