Cloud computing security
Security is the buzz word across the world and it plays an important role across different aspects related to network and information security. Any technology or implementation introduced across the networking world always suffers with some issues and among these issues security always seeks the top position. This tendency does not leave the cloud computing as well and the main issues faced by the customers and the service providers of the different clouds like public cloud, private cloud or hybrid could are purely related to the security.
In general the security across the cloud can be of two important types like the data security and the network security. Network security is obvious across any new implementation in the field of cloud computing and the majority of the risks are purely associated with the data security. As the cloud computing has promised the trusted levels on the top, most of the service providers and customers should trust each other before the customer automate their operations using the cloud computing technology. Cloud computing is purely a trust based business and the customers should trust the service providers in terms of their information security and data security.
As their data and the corresponding information related to their organization and customers are confidential in nature, most of the organizations tend to think twice before they opt the service providers for the cloud implementation. Databases are maintained across a remote location by the service providers and thus the customers always doubt about the security of their data and the mutual trust also fail in most of the cases, due to the case studied observed in past and also the customers may doubt the viability of the vendors in most of the cases.
In general the required security to the cloud operations are performed by the third parties apart from the actual customers and the actual service providers and these third parties concentrate more on the security of the clouds irrespective of the cloud being allocated like the public cloud, private cloud or the hybrid cloud. Even there are many measures taken against the security for the cloud computing, always there is an equal probability in term of the technical enhancements and the security related issues for the clouds maintained by the mentioned third parties.
Additional risks are associated with the security related issues across the cloud computing apart from the discussed business risks in the previous section. In general the security risks associated with the cloud computing can be either external or internal to the organization and thus the third parties who are handling the security related issues should have complete knowledge on the business operations provided by the corresponding service providers and the customers as well. To assess the level of security requirements for the cloud across the organizations and the service providers, few important aspects should be considered and they are as listed below
- All the possible threats against the information of the clients should be analyzed in detail to provide the required security to the cloud and the corresponding data stored across the clouds
- Different types of attackers should be evaluated against their capabilities in attacking the client data in all the possible ways and mechanisms
- Analysis of all the other possible security risks associated with the current cloud implementation and the corresponding measures to be taken to handle the corresponding security risks
- Few case studies against the cloud security and the corresponding impact on the data of the customers should be evaluated to gain the required knowledge on handling the possible risks associated with all the clouds like public clouds, private clouds and the hybrid clouds.
- A detailed analysis on the future possible risks and the emerging risks should be done to evaluate the performance of the current security risk management strategies followed across the third party organizations .