Vulnerabilities Analysis of Data as a Service Cloud Offering

This dissertation investigates the vulnerabilities associated with Data as a Service (DaaS) cloud offerings, particularly within the context of higher education. The study begins with an introduction to the background, aim, objectives, and research questions, followed by an overview of digital transformation and cloud computing's role in education. The literature review explores the importance of cloud computing, different cloud services, and the specific characteristics of DaaS. It examines how DaaS is used, its significance in higher education, and the vulnerabilities that can impact organizations. The research methodology outlines the research type, design, approach, and data collection methods. The discussion of findings analyzes secondary data to identify vulnerabilities and suggests ways to mitigate risks. The conclusion summarizes the key findings and provides recommendations for enhancing the use of DaaS and reducing its vulnerabilities. The research uses exploratory design and thematic data analysis to identify vulnerabilities in the context of higher education.

DISSERTATION

TABLE OF CONTENTS
CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION.....................................................................................................1
Title..............................................................................................................................................1
Background..................................................................................................................................1
Aim..............................................................................................................................................1
Objectives....................................................................................................................................1
Research Questions......................................................................................................................2
Work done and Results................................................................................................................2
Conclusion...................................................................................................................................3
Structure of the Report.................................................................................................................3
CHAPTER 2 LITERATURE REVIEW..........................................................................................3
Overview......................................................................................................................................3
Theme 1 Importance of Cloud Computing and different kinds of cloud computing services....4
Theme 2 Overview of Data as a Service (DaaS) Cloud offering................................................5
Theme 3 Importance of DaaS in High education........................................................................6
Theme 4 Challenges and vulnerabilities associated with Data as a Service cloud offering and
their impact on organizations.......................................................................................................7
Theme 5 Ways in which vulnerabilities associated with Data as a Service (DaaS) Cloud
offering can be reduced...............................................................................................................8
CHAPTER 3 RESEARCH METHODOLOGY..............................................................................9
Overview......................................................................................................................................9
Research type...............................................................................................................................9
Research design.........................................................................................................................10
Research approach.....................................................................................................................11
Research philosophy..................................................................................................................11
Data collection...........................................................................................................................12
Literature search strategy...........................................................................................................12
Inclusion and exclusion criteria.................................................................................................12
Ethical considerations................................................................................................................13
Research limitations...................................................................................................................13

Reliability and validity..............................................................................................................14
CHAPTER 4 DISCUSSION OF FINDINGS................................................................................14
CHAPTER 5 CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATIONS....................................................14
REFERENCES..............................................................................................................................15
APPENDIX....................................................................................................................................17
PROPOSAL...................................................................................................................................17
INTRODUCTION.........................................................................................................................17
Background................................................................................................................................17
Aim............................................................................................................................................18
Objectives..................................................................................................................................18
Research questions.....................................................................................................................18
LITERATURE REVIEW..............................................................................................................19
RESEARCH METHODOLOGY..................................................................................................22
PROJECT PLAN (GANTT CHART)...........................................................................................24

CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION
Title
Data as a Service (DaaS) Cloud offering
Background
Emerging technologies have brought various kinds of changes within education system.
This technology advancement has helped in bringing transformation within education system
digitally. This digital transformation has brought various kinds of changes of universities/
colleges and for students as well in many different ways (Bond and et. al., 2018). Digital
transformation has introduced various kinds of new technologies and services that can be used by
colleges and students and changed ways in which students and exams were conducted. Cloud
computing is a part of digital transformation that has occurred in higher education. It has worked
as a revolution for higher education. There are various kinds of cloud- based services that are
being frequently used by students because of which today education and learning not limited to
textbooks and notebooks only. One of the most important cloud- based service which is used in
higher education is DaaS Data as a Service (Rof, Bikfalvi and Marquès, 2020). This Data as a
Service is not only used in education industry but it is used by various organizations operating in
different sector. This service has made it much easier for universities and students to store and
share information/ data and knowledge with others easily. But there are various kinds of
vulnerabilities that are associated Data as a Service Cloud offering. This dissertation will be
focusing upon identifying main vulnerabilities associated with Data as a Service.
Aim
This dissertation has majorly focused upon a specific cloud offering which is Data as a
service (DaaS). Main aim that has been focused upon in this dissertation is “To analyse
vulnerabilities associated with Cloud offering of Data as a Service (DaaS)”.
Objectives
Major research objectives that have been focused upon in this dissertation are:
 To analyse importance of cloud computing
 To analyse different kinds of cloud computing services
 To evaluate ways in which Data as a Service (DaaS) Cloud offering is used.
 To analyse importance of DaaS in High education
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 To evaluate vulnerabilities associated with Data as a Service cloud offering and their impact
on organizations.
 To identify ways in which vulnerabilities associated with Data as a Service (DaaS) Cloud
offering can be reduced.
 To recommend appropriate ways though which usage of Data as a Service (DaaS) Cloud
offering can be increased and vulnerabilities associated with it can be reduced.
 To identify gaps in this research and suggest future results.
Research Questions
Major research questions that this dissertation has answered are as follows:
 Why cloud computing is important?
 What are different kinds of cloud computing services?
 How Data as a Service (DaaS) Cloud offering is used?
 Why DaaS is important in High education?
 What are different kinds of vulnerabilities associated with Data as a Service cloud offering
and their impact on organizations?
 What are different ways in which vulnerabilities associated with Data as a Service (DaaS)
Cloud offering can be reduced?
 Recommend appropriate ways though which usage of Data as a Service (DaaS) Cloud
offering can be increased and vulnerabilities associated with it can be reduced.
 What are main gaps in this research and suggest future results.
Work done and Results
In this research secondary data analysis has been done for successfully achieving main
aim and objectives. In this dissertation importance of digital transformation in higher education
has been discussed. Ways in which new and advance digital technology in higher education is
being used and transforming higher education has also been discussed briefly. Then, in this
dissertation a brief overview of importance of cloud computing and different kinds of services
offered by cloud services providers has been discussed. All the secondary data has been collected
from different sources though articles, journals, books, online portals and many more and using
appropriate literature search strategy data was collected. In order to identify vulnerabilities
associated with Cloud offering of Data as a Service using exploratory research design method
required data has been collected and analysed using thematic data analysis method. Results of
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this dissertation has further been used to identify and recommend ways in which vulnerabilities
associated with Cloud offering of Data as a Service can be reduced and can be effectively used in
higher education.
Conclusion
From chapter 4- discussion and findings it has bene identified that there are various kinds of
security issues or vulnerabilities that are associated with Cloud offering of Data as a Service in
higher education. Discussion clearly explains that it is important for organizations to focus upon
identifying and implementing ways though which these restrictions can be reduced so that it can
be used in an appropriate manner.
Structure of the Report
This Dissertation consist of five main chapters.
Chapter 1: Introduction- In this chapter main aim and objectives required to be achieved will be
discussed and a brief background and overview of research topic will also be provided.
Chapter 2: Literature Review- In this chapter various sources of secondary data have been
reviewed in order to develop a base for the research and collect required information to be
analysed in order to answer main research questions.
Chapter 3: Research Methodology- This chapter helps in identifying main research methods that
are used in this dissertation with reason because of which those methods have been used.
Chapter 4: Discussion of Findings- In this chapter analysis of secondary data collected is done
though thematic data analysis method.
Chapter 5: Conclusion and recommendations- This chapter concludes final results of dissertation
that have been identified and then on the basis of those results final recommendations to
overcome those vulnerabilities have been identified.
CHAPTER 2 LITERATURE REVIEW
Overview
This literature review will focus upon reviewing all the secondary data collected from
different sources in an appropriate manner. This literature review will help in understanding
main research topic in a proper and accurate manner and will further help in gaining
understanding of cloud computing, its services in a proper manner. It will help in understanding
what is Data as a Service, ways in which it is used and different challenges and vulnerabilities
associated with this service in a proper and effective manner.
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Theme 1 Importance of Cloud Computing and different kinds of cloud computing services
According to the view of Abdel-Basset, Mohamed and Chang, (2018) Cloud computing
is one of the most commonly used advance digital technology which is being used by
organizations today. It helps in facilitating easy access to data and application any time for users
regardless of their location through internet connectivity. It provides different kinds of scalable
computing resources to organizations at an appropriate cost which makes it much easier for users
to store or access unlimited data or work on applications any time as per their need and
requirement. Today cloud computing has become extremely important for different kinds of
business organizations due to its increasing usage and benefits that it provides to its issuers.
Cloud computing technology has made it much easier for organizations to achieve their main
business objectives in an appropriate manner.
As per the view of He and et. al., (2016) Cloud computing is important in education
industry as well especially for higher education. It has made it much easier for institutes that
provide higher education to students to provide or offer educational services by using different
kinds of cloud services to students easily. They can easily make education resources or study
materials easily available to students regardless of student’s location. These resources and
materials can be accessed by students any time of the day. Now educational institutes can easily
manage large amount of data with high security in lower or reduced cost. In current pandemic
situation of Coronavirus cloud computing services for high education institutes have plays a vital
role. Due to these cloud computing services, institutes were easily able to provide required study
material to students, they were able to conduct exams online and save required data on cloud
with high security. Students were not only able to access required study materials but were able
to give their assignments and exams online regardless of their location and time.
In addition to this, Jiang, Ma and Wei, (2016) explains that, there are various kinds of
cloud computing services that are provided by cloud service provers that can be used by higher
education universities or institutes. Some of the main type of services offered by cloud providers
are: infrastructure as a service of IaaS is one of the main clouds offering that offers fundamental
infrastructure of virtual network, servers, data storage drivers and operating systems. This
service helps in fulfilling need of hardware’s in a cost- effective manner. This service focuses
upon pay for services that be used only. Another cloud offering service is platform as a service or
PaaS. This service offers a platform to organizations that can be used by them to deploy, develop
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and run their own applications. It helps in providing an environment where more than one
developer can work simultaneously on a same project. Third type of service offered by cloud
providers is Software as a service or SaaS. This service helps in providing deployment of
software over internet to different kinds of businesses as per their usage in a cost- effective
manner. This service runs on pay as per usage model in which business or users pay for
subscription as per their usage. Gohari Moghadam and Åhlgren, (2020) further elaborates that,
Other than this there are many new and advance services that have been developed ad are offered
to business organizations as per their usage to users. One of those advance cloud offering service
is Data as a Service or DaaS. DaaS is enabled by Software as a service. It is majorly used for
data integration, storage and management. Most of the organizations uses this service for
bringing improvement within agility of data workload, reduce time to insight, enhance integrity
of data as well as enhance reliability of data.
Theme 2 Overview of Data as a Service (DaaS) Cloud offering
Søilen, (2016) explains that, DaaS is a data management strategy that can be used by
users of cloud computing for delivering data storage, integration, processing as well as analytical
services. it is enabled by Software as a Service or it can also be said that it is similar to software
as a service. This service has been introduced recently. This service helps in outsourcing
maximum data storage, processing and integration operations to cloud. While SaaS, PaaS, IaaS
services had been introduced a decade ago but DaaS service has recently come into use. This
service has been introduced recently because initially cloud services were not designed to handle
massive workload. Processing of wide or large number of datasets though network was
extremely difficult previously. Due to this limitation, and limited offered bandwidth, this new
DaaS or Data as a service cloud offering was introduced.
As per the view of Abe and Ustundaug, (2018) It has helped in making large scale data
management and processing possible that includes all the benefits of Software as a service. There
are various kinds of benefits which is provided in regards to speed, performance and reliability.
Some of the main benefits of DaaS service are: it requires minimum setup time i.e. organizations
can easily begin storage and processing of data immediately as required. It has helped in bringing
improvement within various functionalities of cloud like downtime or disruption chances has
reduced drastically. it has provided greater amount of flexibility i.e. as per the requirement of
users, cloud resources can be allotted to premises instantaneously as per the workload. DaaS
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offering of cloud computing services is extremely cost saving and can be optimized easily.
Organizations can change increase or decrease allocated resources as the need of organization so
that only right number of resources are used and excess cost associated with resource usage can
be reduced. It can also help its users in automatically maintain and keep their data up to date.
Not only this, usage of DaaS require very a smaller number of staff members for management of
this service and data stored in it in a proper and appropriate manner.
According to the view of Fulker, (2019) DaaS is an important service whose importance
is increasing. Today almost every organization require space and platform for data storage and
processing. It helps in resolving storage issue. Most of the organizations use it as a solution to
manage their data, expand and sorter data in different format in a secure manner so that it can be
accessed in an appropriate manner, without degrading overall quality of information stored and
without risking theft or security of information. It is also important for organizations because it
has volume based pricing method and also have data type subscription method because of which
it becomes easier for business organizations to manage their costing as per the size and
complexity of business.
Theme 3 Importance of DaaS in High education
According to the view of Olorunfemi Abe and Berk Ustundaug, (2018) data and analytics
is extremely important in higher education. Today due to advancement in technology it has
become important for organizations that provide higher education to integrate their education
system with information technology. Today higher education institutes focus upon introducing
various kinds of courses and study material to students online in order to enhance their overall
knowledge so that they can implement that knowledge practically. Nowadays many institutes
also providing study material to students online, provide them facility to attempt online exams
online regardless of their location. This facility has helped high education institutes to enhance
facility of making their students remain updated with education. Not only this, if there is any
kind of changes within educational system or within studies then students can be made aware
with the changes and appropriate material or data can be made available to them easily. Due to
this, data as a service has become important in higher education.
As per the view of Bastrakova, Kemp and Car, (2016) Data as a Service has replaced
traditional ways of providing education for high education institutes. Today most of the top
universities are using this cloud offering service for management of their data so that it becomes
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much easier for students to access required data, process it in a proper manner. It does not
require a storage space i.e. all the data is stored and processed on cloud which makes it much
easier for institutes to manage data of their students, subjects, additional courses, examination
data and store it security on cloud so that it can be processes and accessed whenever it is
required. Initially in order to maintain data and store it additional staff members were required
but now limited number of staff members are required for maintenance of data with higher
security level. Not only this it has also become much easier for organizations to maintain and
easily access data over internet in a much faster speed. Today in current pandemic situation it has
become important for most of the institutes to provide education to students online and make all
the data available online, conduct all the examination online, make students work on projects as
well online. In this, data as a service cloud offering has plays a vital role which has made it
much easier for universities to provide education online though data as a service cloud offering
to students and students to access required data online in a much easier and faster manner.
Theme 4 Challenges and vulnerabilities associated with Data as a Service cloud offering and
their impact on organizations.
According to the view of Badidi, Routaib and El Koutbi, (2016) there are various kinds
of vulnerabilities and challenges that are associated with this data as a service (DaaS) cloud
offering. Due to this many unique security considerations arise. This is mainly because all the
data of organization is stored in cloud and is transferred over network. Due to this various kind
of security risk or issues arises that would not even exist if data is stored locally within firewall
institutes. Another vulnerability associated with DaaS cloud offering is that it increases
unauthorised access risk for data. This is majorly because all the data of organization is stored on
cloud that can be access though a unique username and password. Due to this unauthorized
access to data increases. It is one of the main vulnerabilities associated with this cloud offering.
It is important for organizations to pay attentions to these security issues so that data can be
stored security overcloud and unauthorized access vulnerability security issue can be reduced.
As per the view of Hayat and et. al., (2019) there are many other kinds of vulnerabilities
associated with Data as a Service cloud offering. Compliance vulnerability is another kind of
challenge especially for organizations who risk moving sensitive or confidential data to cloud
environment. This does not mean that special data cannot be stored on cloud but it simply means
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that special compliance terms and conditions are required to be developed in order to ensure that
all the important data stored can be security stored through DaaS Service.
In addition to this, Psomakelis and et. al., (2020) explains that, DaaS platform reduces
number of tools available or required for working and users will only be able to work on tools
that are compatible with DaaS platform. Due to this flexibility of this platform reduces. It is one
of the major challenge which is associated with this data as a service cloud offering. It is
important to work on such security issues because due to these issues it can become difficult to
store sensitive, confidential or personal data on cloud in a secure manner.
Theme 5 Ways in which vulnerabilities associated with Data as a Service (DaaS) Cloud offering
can be reduced
As per the view of Naous, Schwarz and Legner, (2017) there are various kinds of security
issues and vulnerabilities associated with data as a service cloud offering. It is important to
identify ways in which these vulnerabilities can be reduced. These vulnerabilities are important
to be reduced because it increases risk of data security. One of the main vulnerabilities associated
with this Data as a Service Cloud offering is unauthorized access vulnerability. In order to reduce
vulnerability of this issue is to save username and password of logging in in encrypted form and
only few of them should be allowed to access the account. Saving password in encrypted form
will reduce theft of username and password and will further help in reducing vulnerabilities of
unauthorised access. This way not only unauthorised access chances can be reduced but privacy
and security of data can also be maintained. This security way can be used by both organizations
and high education institutes as well. In fact, it is extremely important to be used in higher
education because such institutes store data of their students, their account, academic data,
institute related data and many more. Unauthorised access can put data of all the students as well
as of institute vulnerable.
Gill and et. al., (2018) further explains that, educating employees is another way though
which vulnerability associated with Data as a Service can be reduced. Employees who will be
using data stored in DaaS for storing, analysing or for any other purpose should be educated and
proper training should be provided to them. Employees should be provided training for different
kinds of defensive practises that can be adopted by them while using this Data as a Service cloud
offering. This can be done by setting up some protocols for employees so that even if they feel
that their data has been compromised. Educating employees about this can directly help
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employees in understanding ways in which they can securely use this service, and even if any
unauthorized person access data then some set of protocols can be developed that can be used by
employees for restricting unauthorised access. Employees can also be provided training for
running unannounced security test training. This unannounced training can directly help in
identifying ways in which whether users of DaaS service within organization are aware of the
security threats or not, whether they can identify unauthorised person accessing this service and
data or any kind of phishing emails have been sent to them or not.
According to the view of Piraghaj and et. al., (2017) one of the most important
vulnerability of DaaS service which is created due to risk of unauthorised access is moving
sensitive and confidential data to cloud because due to this risk, it becomes difficult for
organizations to trust these services and directly store such kind of data on cloud. For this there
are two main ways though which security of confidential and sensitive data on cloud can be
ensured. First is to develop a secure data back up plan and second is to store data in encrypted
manner that can only be accessed by a person who has correct encryption key. This will help in
securely storing sensitive and confidential data so that even if an unauthorised person access the
data they will not be able to use or understand the data. This method can be used by high
education institutes as well and they can store of all of their confidential data accordingly.
Piraghaj and et. al., (2017) further elaborates that, all the three identified methods should be used
by organizations if they want to use data as a service cloud computing offering security and store
their data without any issue. Other that this, organizations should continuously test data on DaaS
and ways in which employees use it.
CHAPTER 3 RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
Overview
Research methodology helps in providing a brief overview of methods that are used by
researcher for data collection and analysis in order to answer main research questions in an
appropriate manner (Adhabi and Anozie, 2017). It helps in enhancing overall knowledge of
different methods can be used within research for achieving main goals and objectives of the
research study.
Research type
It is also known as research method which is a kind of a procedure though which data
collection, analysis and interpretation can be done in a proper and appropriate manner for
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