IFN600 Understanding Research: Investigating Security in Cloud

This report provides a comprehensive analysis of security issues in cloud computing. It begins by introducing the background of cloud computing and its associated risks, particularly concerning information security. The problem statement highlights the gap between current security measures and the evolving threats, focusing on data breaches, authentication issues, and vulnerabilities in cloud infrastructure. Several research questions are posed, addressing the major types of cloud security issues, the challenges faced by business organizations, and the impact of these issues on overall security. The research methodology section details the positivism philosophy and deductive approach used, along with the utilization of both primary and secondary data sources. The report also outlines expected tangible outputs and acknowledges research limitations such as reliability and time constraints. Desklib offers a platform to explore this report further, along with other solved assignments and past papers for students.

Running head: IFN600 UNDERSTANDING RESEARCH
IFN600 UNDERSTANDING RESEARCH
(Cloud and Information Technology)
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author Note:

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Table of Contents
Background..........................................................................................................................2
Problem Statement...............................................................................................................2
Research Question...............................................................................................................4
Research Methodology........................................................................................................6
Expected Tangible Outputs..................................................................................................8
New Knowledge..................................................................................................................9
Reflective Statement............................................................................................................9
References..........................................................................................................................11

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Background
In the domain of cloud computing, there are various kind of resources like infrastructure,
software and platform. It can be used for web based tools and application by making use of
different internet based technology. Moving to cloud platform for organization aims to create
huge number of risk. Information security is considered to be as one of the most important risk
for any organization (Puthal et al. 2015). It is mainly done for intellectual property, analyzed
information and another kind of information. The idea of cloud computing is completely based
under the concept for different IT-based resources like software and related infrastructure. In the
year 1999, salesforce.com come into the picture. It is found to be the first milestone in the
domain of cloud computing. The website is considered to be as the best model for providing
application by making use of simple website (Almorsy, Grundy & Müller, 2016). Later on, in the
year 2002, amazon web services come into picture to provide a range of cloud service by making
use of mechanical Truk. In the year 2006, Amazon come up an elastic compute cloud which is a
commercial web services for small firms and individual for running different system application.
In the comings pages, problem statement in cloud computing and information technology
has been provided. The next section deals with list of research question for this topic. In addition,
the report deals with research methodology, expected tangible output and new knowledge in this
section.
Problem Statement
Cloud computing is a well-known technology which is needed for organizing and
managing a different kind of services and resources (Kumar, Raj & Jelciana, 2018). Cloud

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computing technology aims to provide the suitable platform for different computation services.
All the software can be accessed and data can be handled for improvement of cloud solution. It is
a new kind of technology which results in wrapping up of virtualization. It is merely seen for
parallel computing and distributed computing into a single point (Rao, 2016). Cloud computing
is defined as a delivery model that helps in convenient and efficient network services.
Security is considered to be major requirement for maintaining overall trust and
information authenticity for provided information and services. The research aims to highlight
the gap between security issues in the current system. In the last few years, privacy and trust
issues exist in internet evolution (Sen, 2015). The main reason is widely known for data which is
being protected in cloud platform. Most of the organization on cloud platform can easily inherit
the level of risk as the outsourced service can bypass both physical and personnel controls. At
the time of data storage on cloud, an individual need to assure that data is being stored incorrect
format and be retrieved on later platform. The overall value of data stored can be moved by
cloud for a client which is found to be enormous (Rao & Selvamani, 2015). It is very much
important to have trust in between cloud provider so that user can have mutual trust. The cloud
service provider needs to assure about the malicious hacker so that user can ensure data
consistency and data storage.
Cloud computing emphasizes on the use of public networks and making use of
transmitting data which is exposed to the whole world. It can be analyzed that cyber-attacks in
any state for cloud computing can easily take place. The current cloud based services suffer from
various kind of vulnerabilities problem (Aljawarneh & Yassein, 2016). It is due to the presence
for security issues that can be damaged by attacker. Both security and privacy are considered to
be major concern in cloud computing as a result of computing approach. The current approach in

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cloud computing has made it vulnerable to issues related to both information and network
security. Third-party relationship aims to come up as a risk in cloud environment for different
security threats which is achieved for virtual machine. There are many factors like errors due to
human interference, bugs in software and issues related to social engineering has made cloud
security bit challenging (Khan & Al-Yasiri, 2016). Intrusion detection aims to play a key role in
proper monitoring of network so that security risk can be reduced.
There are many ways by which security threat can be easily introduced in cloud
environment that ranges from databases, virtual server and networks. For different cloud users,
both data segregation and session hijacking is considered to be potential and unavoidable kind of
security threat for various cloud uses (Hussein & Khalid, 2016). The biggest issue for cloud
computing is the level of abstraction and scalability that results from poor security. Privacy and
related concept aim to vary from various kind of security threats for different cloud services.
Data loss and botnets has come as a result of security breach for cloud servers. Multi-national
model is a vital parameter considering the security.
Storage security of cloud service is completely related with cloud services. Different
security risks come with capability in cloud infrastructure for the benefit of cloud computing
(Wadhwa & Gupta, 2015). There are mainly three aspects that is confidentiality, authority and
availability under which the security of cloud comes into picture. Threats with respect to cloud
infrastructure is applied to both infrastructure and data.
Research Question
What are the major types of cloud security issues?

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Cloud computing is considered to be affordable, scalable and efficient solution for most
of the business. When cloud computing came into picture, distributed denial of services (DDoS)
attacks are seen against most of the cloud platform. The amount of sheer resources for cloud
computing has made DDoS attack very much difficult to initiate. As a result of growth of
Internet of things various devices, smartphone and computing system are available. DDoS attack
have ultimately increased the overall viability (Elzamly et al., 2017). If enough traffic has been
initiated for cloud computing system then it can go down experiencing certain difficulties. All of
the cloud computing solution and services are not made equal. Most of cloud solution does not
provide the required security in between clients and shared solution. Negligence from employee
side and any mistake are considered to be biggest security issue for different system. The
majority threat encountered is found to be dangerous for different cloud solution. Most of the
latest employees can log into cloud solution for mobile, desktop and home tablets which leaves
most of the system vulnerable to threats from outside (Satapathy, Moharana & Ojha, 2016).
Improper synchronization and back of data have ultimately made the system vulnerable to
ransomware attack. The main focus of ransomware attack is taking away the data of organization
in encrypted format which provides easy access to data. This particular question has not been
answered till date as most of cloud security issues are developing at a rapid rate.
What are the cloud security issues faced by business organizations?
Data Breaches is found to be as one of the common struggle for most of the firms in the
last few years. The overall consequence of breach is considered to be massive that result from
fines and loss of client trust. The overall effect of breach merely depends on nature and
sensitivity for the provided data (Narula & Jain, 2015). Most of the firms can easily overcome
damage by enhancing authentication and security protocols. Broken authentication and hacking

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of credentials are considered as a result of weak authentication. An organization can encounter
issues in assigning proper permission for its users or even can remove user access when the
employee leaves the organization. Another kind of security risk involved with cloud services it
that how the access is managed. The mere focus is all about providing multiple users along with
limiting the damage of service (Lee et al., 2015). Application programming interface is
considered to be best resolution for authentication and user permission management.
How security of business organization gets affected due to security issues in Cloud
Computing?
There is various kind of security problems for cloud computing as it comprises of range
of technologies like database, network, virtualization and memory management. There are many
security issues for provided system and technologies that are being used in cloud computing
(Samarati et al., 2016). Most of the network which interconnects system on the cloud platform
needs to be secured. Virtualization in cloud computing ultimately leads to different kind of
security risks.
Research Methodology
Research methodology is found to be very much useful in analyzing the best approach
which is required for attaining the complete detail of process (Islam, Manivannan & Zeadally,
2016). There is large number of theories and concepts which are adopted in research
methodology that helps in better analysis of this particular research topic.
In this section, all the details with respect to research techniques for analyzing security
problem relation to cloud computing are evaluated. The chosen philosophy of research is
philosophy is positivism which helps in gaining all the required information depending on the

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provided logic (Krishna et al., 2016). The deductive approach will guide the researcher to carry
out proper study considering the secondary analysis that helps in analyzing security issues in
cloud. On the contrary, descriptive design will researcher in analyzing the concepts in proper
way for analyzing the impact. Both primary and secondary data will help in getting all the details
of topic.
Research onion is found to be as the best methodology tool which helps in analyzing the
key division of research. Research onion is the best tool for most of the academic student for
conducting research by analyzing each and every step (Albugmi et al., 2016). Research onion
helps in analyzing each layer of research technique which ultimately helps in much better
research and information from analysis.
Fig 1: Research Onion
(Source: Hussein & Khalid, 2016)

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Data is found to as one of useful information and facts which helps in analyzing the
research topic that is security issues in cloud in much better. Data source is very much important
in analyzing the research topic and having all the required information. Primary data is known to
be useful in having raw data which is collected as per the requirement of the research topic.
Secondary data sources helps in increasing knowledge for research topic and much better
understanding of the topic (Wadhwa & Gupta, 2015). It is due to fact that it requires involvement
of much more data and description. Secondary sources of data are merely inclusive of both
online and offline source of data like journals, books, website, blogs, articles and many others.
Qualitative data is found to be helpful as it provides data in narrative form which can add better
description of this research topic on security issues in cloud computing.
Research study is very much helpful in having result of the given topic which helps in
encountering certain restriction. The restriction is of two kinds that is avoidable and non-
avoidable. Research limitation also describes nature of research topic that highlights area and
restricted scope and abilities (Elzamly et al., 2017). In this particular research, there are certain
number of research limitations like reliability and time-constraints.
Expected Tangible Outputs
The main aspect of cloud computing is all about a host server firm which can host certain
service for users that is connected by network. Technology has ultimately moved in this
particular direction as a result of development of computing and network based topologies. There
is need for fast and reliable connectivity which is being used in current cloud computing
(Satapathy, Moharana & Ojha, 2016). This particular technology is one of the advanced
technology due to its cost-efficiency and flexibility aspect. The vision of cloud computing is to

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be defined as the IT procurement model. From the research, it has been analyzed that there are
many businesses around the globe who are yet to adopt cloud computing. Most of firms are
putting less sensitive data on the cloud infrastructure. As a result of lack of control is the
transparency in cloud implementation contradicts for the original promises where cloud
implementation is not found to be relevant in nature. Transparency is required for many
regulatory purpose where there is concern for any kind of data breach (Narula & Jain, 2015). As
a result of improper control, most of the organization are testing waters with much small projects
that has less sensitive data. At the time of thinking for solution in cloud computing, there are
many kind of adaptation issues for new kind of testing which is much acute in nature.
New Knowledge
Cloud computing comes up with various kind of advantage for business but the security
related to it is directly related to advantages. Cloud computing comes up with numerous option
for both business and attackers. The overall benefits of cloud computing can be completely
ignored as a result of security reasons. Security issues in cloud can easily affect the overall
infrastructure. In the domain of cloud computing, security aims to add up a proper layer. Cloud
computing has ultimately become as an inevitable ideal business approach for business
computation. From the secondary analysis we have come to the point that storage security,
middleware security, network security and application security comes into picture. The main
focus is all about managing the data which is not being controlled by data owner. After that, the
main focus is all about analyzing the different aspect of cloud computing. There is a wide range
of security issues with respect to security aspect of virtualization. As a result of the complexity
of cloud, it has become much difficult to have a complete end to end security.

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Reflective Statement
The report aims to provide the background of the research topic and various risks related
to cloud computing. In the report, I have provided a problem statement in the domain of cloud
computing and information technology. I have covered three important aspects of security that is
confidentiality, integrity and availability. I have come across three important issues in cloud
computing which is being faced by organization. All the issues are tackled by adaptation of
suitable solution obtained by research methodology.
For this research, I have made use of qualitative data that helps in providing a complete
description of security issues in cloud. Cloud computing is known to be advanced technology
which arises as a result of cost-efficiency and flexibility. I have come across security issues in
cloud which can affect the infrastructure of the whole organization.

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References
Albugmi, A., Alassafi, M. O., Walters, R., & Wills, G. (2016, August). Data security in cloud
computing. In 2016 Fifth International Conference on Future Generation
Communication Technologies (FGCT) (pp. 55-59). IEEE.
Aljawarneh, S. A., & Yassein, M. O. B. (2016). A conceptual security framework for cloud
computing issues. International Journal of Intelligent Information Technologies
(IJIIT), 12(2), 12-24.
Almorsy, M., Grundy, J., & Müller, I. (2016). An analysis of the cloud computing security
problem. arXiv preprint arXiv:1609.01107.
Elzamly, A., Hussin, B., Abu-Naser, S. S., Shibutani, T., & Doheir, M. (2017). Predicting
Critical Cloud Computing Security Issues using Artificial Neural Network (ANNs)
Algorithms in Banking Organizations.
Hussein, N. H., & Khalid, A. (2016). A survey of cloud computing security challenges and
solutions. International Journal of Computer Science and Information Security, 14(1),
52.
Islam, T., Manivannan, D., & Zeadally, S. (2016). A classification and characterization of
security threats in cloud computing. Int. J. Next-Gener. Comput, 7(1).
Khan, N., & Al-Yasiri, A. (2016). Identifying cloud security threats to strengthen cloud
computing adoption framework. Procedia Computer Science, 94, 485-490.
Krishna, B. H., Kiran, S., Murali, G., & Reddy, R. P. K. (2016). Security issues in service model
of cloud computing environment. Procedia Computer Science, 87, 246-251.