Cloud Computing Security and Challenges

Introduction

Cloud computing gives us the ability to access apps as utilities over the internet. It enables us to design, configure, and personalize business applications over the internet. A network or the internet is referred to as a cloud. A cloud is anything that exists at a remote location. Cloud services can be offered across WANs, LANs, and VPNs, as well as public and private networks. E-mail, internet conferencing, and customer relationship management (CRM) are examples of cloud-based applications.

What is Cloud Computing?

The practice of remotely modifying, configuring, and accessing hardware and software resources is referred to as cloud computing. It provides data storage, infrastructure, and applications all across the internet.

Source: Creative Commons

As the software need not be installed locally on the PC, cloud computing provides platform independence. As a result of Cloud Computing, our business applications are becoming more mobile and collaborative. 

Cloud computing security is a critical concern. Encryption should be used while storing data in the cloud. Proxy and brokerage services should be used to prevent clients from directly accessing shared data.

Cloud Computing Security

Cloud computing security is comprised of rules, procedures, and technologies that safeguard cloud-based systems, data, and infrastructure. These security measures are set up to protect cloud data, assist regulatory compliance, preserve consumer privacy, and set up authentication procedures for users and devices.

The way cloud computing security is delivered will be determined by the cloud provider or the cloud security solutions in place. The implementation of cloud security measures, on the other hand, should be shared between the business owner and the solution provider.

Security Planning

Before deploying a resource to the cloud, it is necessary to examine numerous features of the resource, including:

• Choose a resource that needs to be moved to the cloud and assess its risk sensitivity.
• Consider IaaS, PaaS, and SaaS cloud service paradigms. At various degrees of service, these models require customers to be responsible for security.
• Consider whether to employ a public, private, communal, or hybrid cloud.
• Understand the system used by the cloud service provider for data storage and transport into and out of the cloud.

The risk associated with cloud deployment is mostly determined by the service models and cloud types.

Understanding Security of Cloud

The border between the responsibilities of the service provider and the client is defined by a certain service model. The CSA (Cloud Security Alliance) stack model establishes the boundaries between each service model and demonstrates how different functional units interact. The CSA stack model is depicted in the diagram below:

Source: Tutorial Point

Understanding Data Security

Data security is a key problem in the cloud because all data is sent via the Internet. Here are some of the most important data-protection mechanisms.

• Access Control
• Auditing
• Authentication
• Authorization

All service models should have security mechanisms that operate in all these domains.

When it comes to cloud data protection solutions, there is no need for anything particularly novel. Data security in the cloud can be similar to data protection in a traditional data center.

Isolated Access to Data

Data in the cloud is accessible from anywhere. We need a way to isolate data and protect it from direct access from clients.

Cloud Storage Through a Broker Access is a technique for separating cloud storage. Two services are generated because of this method:

• A broker with complete storage access but no customer access
• A proxy that does not have access to storage but does have access to both the client and the broker.

Working on Brokered Cloud Storage Access System

When a client requests access to data, the following steps are taken:

• The client’s data request is sent to the proxy’s external service interface.
• The request is forwarded to the broker by the proxy.
• The data is requested from the cloud storage system by the broker
• The data is returned to the broker via the cloud storage system.
• The data is returned to proxy by the broker.
• Finally, the data is sent to the client by proxy.

The following figure depicts all of the preceding steps:

Source: Tutorial Point

Encryption

Encryption helps to keep data safe from prying eyes. It safeguards data in transit as well as data saved in the cloud. While encryption protects data from unwanted access, it does not prevent data loss.

Security Risks of Cloud Computing

The transition to the cloud has brought new cloud security risks. Cloud computing offers several benefits, like increased collaboration, excellent accessibility, mobility, and storage capacity, to name a few. Cloud computing has a set of security concerns. 

The following are some of the most common security risks of cloud computing: 

• Data Loss 
• Hacked Interfaces and Insecure APIs 
• Data Breach 
• Vendor lock-in 
• Increased complexity strains IT staff 
• Spectre & Meltdown 
• Denial of Service (DoS) attacks 
• Account hijacking 

Other Cloud security risks and Cloud computing threats  

To get a clear picture, be aware of the following cloud security threats and risks of cloud computing that may appear on the cloud, as well as on-premises servers.  

Cloud computing threats and Risks 

• Reduced Visibility and Control from customers.
• Separation Among Multiple Tenants Fails. 
• Data Deletion is Incomplete. 

Cloud Computing Challenges

The cloud is a crucial aspect of our lives nowadays. However, in light of this reliance, we must also consider the concerns and cloud computing challenges present.

• Security and Privacy

Cloud computing’s challenge is an information security and privacy. Encryption, security hardware, and security software can all be used to address security and privacy concerns. 

• Portability

Another issue with the cloud computing challenge is that apps should be able to be quickly moved from one cloud provider to another. Vendor lock-in must be avoided. However, this is not currently practicable because each cloud provider’s platform employs a separate standard language.

• Interoperability

It means that a platform-specific application should be able to use services from different platforms. It is possible thanks to online services but creating them is a challenging task.

• Computing Performance

On the cloud, data-intensive apps necessitate a lot of network bandwidth, which means a lot of money. Low bandwidth does not provide the compute performance that a cloud application requires.

• Reliability and Availability

Most firms today rely on third-party services. Cloud solutions must be dependable and resilient that reliable and available.

How Cloud Security Certifications Benefit Aspirants of the Cloud Computing Profession ?

According to estimates, firms that use the cloud expand 20 percent quicker than those that do not. As a result, it’s more likely that cloud adoption will accelerate soon. According to market research, cloud apps account for an average of 36 percent of all applications in a company, with 9 percent for collaboration services, 16 percent for sharing services, and 13 percent for content sharing services.

Now, 18.1 percent of all uploaded content to the cloud platform contains sensitive information personal to the enterprise. As a result, any business faces a significant problem in preserving such sensitive information. As a result, it is clear that safeguarding the cloud environment is necessary.

The reasons behind it are:

• It allows an organization’s users to keep sensitive information in the cloud, but the information they’re saving isn’t accessible to you.
• It’s critical to have a cloud strategy in order to identify security flaws in cloud infrastructure.

Furthermore, whether vendor-specific, generic, or vendor-neutral, the finest cloud security certification pitches in the areas of cloud security as well as their implementation methods. As a result, firms with the best cloud security certifications may assist businesses in determining their cloud strategy.

CloudThat’s Cloud Security Certification Trainings

CloudThat offers training for prominent cloud security certifications of Azure and AWS. Following certification training are in huge demand amongst security enthusiasts.

Azure Security Certification Trainings

Exam SC-900: Microsoft Security, Compliance, and Identity Fundamentals

Exam SC-300: Microsoft Identity and Access Administrator

Exam SC-200: Microsoft Security Operations Analyst

Exam SC-400: Microsoft Information Protection Administrator

AZ-500: Microsoft Azure Security Technologies

AWS Security Certification Trainings

AWS Certified Security-Specialty (Security Engineering on AWS) SCS-C01 Certification Training

Advantages of getting trained from CloudThat

CloudThat is a pioneer in Cloud  Certification Training since 2012. We have the reputation of having trained 500K+ professionals in this decade-long journey in 29+ countries. As a Microsoft Gold partner and AWS  Authorized Training partner, our courses are delivered in line with Microsoft and AWS’s official curricula.

Exclusive Features of Corporate Training Courses:

• Provides both instructor-led online and classroom learning sessions.
• Offers standard course outlines as well as customized modules.
• Training is delivered by certified and experienced in-house trainers.

CloudThat is focused on the goal of fast equipping IT professionals and enterprises to use Cloud, Big Data, and IoT. CloudThat has trained over 400,000 workers and provided Fortune 500 firms with corporate training.