Comprehensive Analysis of Security Issues in Cloud Computing

This report delves into the critical security issues associated with cloud computing. It identifies key threats such as data breaches, account hijacking, and data loss, highlighting their potential impact on businesses and individuals. The report examines various cloud computing deployment and service models and explores the vulnerabilities inherent in each. It details the nature of data breaches, the risks of account hijacking through phishing and software exploits, and the potential for data loss due to both hacking and natural disasters. Furthermore, it discusses the threat of Denial of Service (DoS) attacks and the abuse of cloud services for malicious purposes. The report suggests countermeasures, such as multifactor authentication, for mitigating the identified risks. However, it also points out the need for further research to address a wider range of security issues and to develop more comprehensive preventive measures, especially for the future of cloud computing.

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SECURITY ISSUES OF CLOUD COMPUTING
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Cloud computing
Cloud computing has seen to have emerged as a full new technique for delivering huge
number of services over the Internet. It is seen to be hugely earning great popularity over the
system of processing which is mainly traditional for the purpose of both storage as well as
processing of huge amount of data. It has been observed that cloud has helped a lot in making
possible for all the users in providing access to their information from any location and at any
time. This is very much helpful for any business which are not much capable of affording for
same amount of both space of storage as well as hardware like those of all the bigger businesses.
Cloud computing is considered to be one of the highly essential transformation in the technology
of information with a huge number of advantages to both the end users as well as the enterprises.
This particular technology provides with the promise of discharging the client from the huge
burden of the administration of much more complex as well as expensive systems by directly
offering with the possibility of utilising several systems with the state of huge availability as well
as scalability. Even though there are a number of advantages of the computing of cloud, it is to
be remembered that the computing of cloud has several disadvantages as well like the breaches
of data, hacking, data loss, attacks of malware, phishing and so on.
Models of cloud computing
It has been known that there are a number of deployment models which are hosted by the
cloud and they are mostly classified by their access, proprietorship as well as size. It actually
tells about the cloud’s nature. All the cloud computing models of deployment are the public
cloud, private cloud, hybrid cloud and the community cloud. Some of the service models of the

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cloud computing will be involving SaaS or Software as a Service, IaaS or Infrastructure as a
Service and PaaS or Platform as a Service.
Cloud security issues
Data breaches- The environments of cloud are seen to be facing a number of similar threats as
those of the corporate networks which are traditional. But, as huge amount of data has been
stored upon the servers of cloud, it has been seen that all the providers have become a target
which is very much attractive. The huge severity of the damage has been seen to tend for
depending upon the data sensitivity which is highly exposed (Hashizume et al., 2013). All the
financial information which are personal grabs all the headlines but all the breaches involving the
information of government and secrets of trade can be very much devastating. Whenever any
breach of data is seen to be taking place, any enterprise must be highly subjected to several legal
actions. All the investigations regarding breach as well as all the notifications of the customers
can hugely rack up with several costs which are highly significant. All the effects which are
indirect may be involving the damage of brand as well as business loss and this can highly
impact the future of several organizations.
Hijacking of account- All the exploits of software, frauds as well as phishing are seen to be
greatly prevalent nowadays and all the services of cloud are seen to be adding a full new
dimension to the huge threat as all the attackers are seen to be eavesdropping upon all the
activities, manipulating all the transactions as well as modifying data (Modi et al. 2013). Even,
all the attackers may be capable of using the application of cloud for launching some other
attacks as well. Hence, several enterprises must be prohibiting the sharing of all the credentials
of account in between all the users as well as the services and must be capable of enabling

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multifactor schemes of authentication wherever available. All the accounts must be properly
monitored such that each and every transaction is traced to a human owner. The key is mainly for
the purpose of protecting all the credentials of accounts from being totally stolen.
Loss of data- Hackers are seen to be having in the past some permanently deleted data from the
cloud for causing harm to the businesses and the data centers of cloud are also equally vulnerable
to several natural disasters as any type of facility (Stojmenovic & Wen, 2014). The providers of
cloud may recommend for the distribution of several applications and data across a number of
zones for far better protection. Adequate backup measures of data as well as the recovery of
disaster are very much essential. Both regular backup as well as off-site storage are very much
essential with the utilisation of the environments of cloud. The huge burden of the prevention of
data loss is not only of the service provider of cloud, but even also of the provider of data as
well. Any customer may possess with the capability of encrypting data before being uploaded
upon the cloud and then that particular customer has to be very much careful for protecting the
key of encryption. If by chance the key is lost somewhere, then definitely data will be lost.
Several policies of compliance most of the times specify how long all the organizations must be
retaining audit records and some documents as well. Loss of such data which are highly sensitive
may be having a number of consequences which are very much serious.
Abuses of the service of cloud- Services of cloud may be hugely used for supporting several
activities like utilising the resources of cloud computing for breaking a key of encryption mainly
for the purpose of launching an attack (Ahmed & Hossain, 2014). Some of the examples of such
attacks will be including the launch of all the attacks of DDoS and offer of several tools for all
the customers for the purpose of monitoring the health of the environments of cloud. Customers
must be making sure that all the providers must provide them with a particular mechanism for

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directly reporting regarding the abuse. Though all the customers may not be a prey which will be
a direct one for all the actions which are malicious, the abuse of the services of cloud can be still
resulting in the service unavailability as well as the loss of data.
Attacks of DoS- DoS attacks are seen to be around for a longer interval of time and are seen to
be gaining prominence and for this again the computing of cloud is to be thanked for. This is
because they are often seen to be affecting the availability (Almorsy, Grundy & Müller, 2016). It
may also happen that systems will be running very much slower. Such attacks of DoS will be
consuming huge amount of power of processing, a particular bill which any customer may have
to pay ultimately. High volume of the attacks of DDoS are very much common but all the
enterprises must be aware of the fact that there may be some asymmetric as well as application
level attacks of DoS as well which will be targeting the server of web and the vulnerabilities of
database. All the providers of cloud are seen to be mostly poised for handling all the attacks of
DoS rather than their individual customers. Here, the main key is properly planning for the
purpose of mitigating the attacks before it has been seen to have occurred and therefor all the
administrators must be having access to all those resources whenever they actually require them.
Countermeasures
In case of any data breach, multifactor systems of authentication like a smartcard or
rather OTP is very much needed for all the users as well as operators of the service of cloud just
because such kinds of systems make it very much harder for any kind of attackers to directly log
in with all the passwords which may get stolen. This particular form of authentication may be
helping a lot in addressing the theft of password, where all the passwords which are stolen will
be enabling access to several resources without any consent of the users.

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The report however fails to describe all kinds of countermeasures which can be undertaken
mainly for the purpose of preventing from such kinds of issues related to the computing of cloud.
It is very much essential to know that what will be all the countermeasures which may be
undertaken for the main purpose of preventing from such kinds of security threats or rather
issues which are related to the computing of cloud. This report has only comprised of only those
countermeasures which will be needed during the data breaches. However, it fails to describe all
the countermeasures which are needed in case of all other security issues of cloud computing.
Hence, future research must be comprising of all the countermeasures which will be
involving all the preventive measures in case of DoS attacks, malware attack, vulnerabilities of
system and so on. Security within the cloud is needed to be updated constantly mainly for
ensuring that they are at all riddled by any kind of attacks. The security domain within the cloud
will be actually the factor to decide regarding either the success or rather the failure of the
system of cloud in the nearer future.

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References
Ahmed, M., & Hossain, M. A. (2014). Cloud computing and security issues in the
cloud. International Journal of Network Security & Its Applications, 6(1), 25.
Almorsy, M., Grundy, J., & Müller, I. (2016). An analysis of the cloud computing security
problem. arXiv preprint arXiv:1609.01107.
Hashizume, K., Rosado, D. G., Fernández-Medina, E., & Fernandez, E. B. (2013). An analysis of
security issues for cloud computing. Journal of internet services and applications, 4(1),
5.
Modi, C., Patel, D., Borisaniya, B., Patel, A., & Rajarajan, M. (2013). A survey on security
issues and solutions at different layers of Cloud computing. The journal of
supercomputing, 63(2), 561-592.
Stojmenovic, I., & Wen, S. (2014, September). The fog computing paradigm: Scenarios and
security issues. In 2014 Federated Conference on Computer Science and Information
Systems (pp. 1-8). IEEE.

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