Security Issues in Cloud Computing

 

Cloud Computing has recently become a promising method of delivering computing resources. But some still do not consider it a new technology. Cloud Computing has been there since a long time but the usage was very subtle. Ranging from data storage services to developing applications, Cloud has also made email handling commitment free and on-demand. Apart from this, it also provides great flexibility with its pay per use concept, compelling many SMBs to migrate. The only factor where Cloud Computing today lacks in providing assurance is the level of security practiced by the vendor.

Depending on the sensitivity of data, there are a variety of security risks that need to be considered before choosing to move into the Cloud. Some of the top security risks involved with the Cloud are:

Data Protection is first of the many threats in Cloud Computing as there is immense risk in allowing someone else to handle your data if not done in a lawful way with proper compliances and data security certifications.

Losing governance rights over a Cloud infrastructure while selecting a Public Cloud Vendor leaves a gap in security thereby ceding control to the vendor.

Cloud Vendor Lock-in makes it difficult for users to migrate from vendor to another and introduces huge switching costs and complexity. Click here now Oracle Partner

Data availability in terms of 99.9% uptime guaranteed in SLAs is sometime not met due to inadvertent situations such as outages leading to huge data loss and business process discontinuity.

Isolation failure, multi-tenancy and shared resources are significant characteristics of cloud computing. This risk category covers the failure of mechanisms separating storage, memory, routing and even reputation between different tenants (e.g., so-called guest-hopping attacks).

Leniency or poor encryption techniques used during data transactions in the Cloud may prove fatal if there are hackers sitting on another end waiting to find a way in to the firewall.

Certain Cloud Providers do not allow customer audits, creating a risk in migration to such a provider by not providing evidence of the relevant compliances.

Web browsing vulnerabilities pose serious threat to customer management interfaces of Public Cloud providers where the data is accessible via the internet.

Data backup and loss of data is another reason which makes Cloud migration decisions a tough nut to crack.

Finally human threat, which is usually unlikely, can also be a reason of data leak and privacy risks.

With the inadvertent growth of Cloud Computing in recent times, security has really become a major concern for users/businesses looking to incorporate the Cloud into their processes/strategy- moving their business data online, building LOB applications on a PaaS or utilizing the infrastructure services of an IaaS provider. Listed above are a few of the examples of security issues in Cloud Computing. To sum it up, Security in the Cloud broadly refers to a set of policies, technologies, and controls devised to protect data, applications, and the associated infrastructure of Cloud Computing consumers.