BA 632 76 Information System Security: Cloud Computing

Introduction

The foremost purpose of this reflective report is to focus on the importance of cloud computing and the privacy issues related to it. Cloud computing is defined as the type of computational standard used in different types of business enterprises, it is extensively used for storing significant data related to the business in a secure environment (Rittinghouse and Ransome 2016). According to me using the cloud services, clients can store and retrieve data without much investment. I think people are using this service everyday this gave rise to different kinds of issues in the form of cyber threats, this report will be focusing on those issues.  

Identify the main issues and problems 

I believe that like every other technologies cloud computing also have different types of issues related with it which negatively impact the efficiency of the business enterprises who incorporated this technology (Kim and Solomon 2016). These issues are either from the cloud providers or from the cloud consumers. According to me, the prime issues related to cloud computing is the security issues, privacy issues, issues related to the management of the cloud services, security related to the cloud access methods. I believe that each service models of the cloud computing have some kind of vulnerabilities associated with them, which are discussed in this report with prime importance.

Analyse and evaluate critically all relevant issues  

IaaS issue: I think all the IaaS issues in computing are related to all the issues related to the infrastructure components of the cloud service providers such as detailed billing system, monitoring, log access, load balancing, security, storage resiliency like replication and recovery (Rao and Selvamani 2015). According to me, the security issues related to the IaaS are VM security, hypervisor security and virtual network security. Security issues occur during the offline modes also. I think that security issue arises when same network infrastructure is shared by different clients with the same server.

PaaS issue: I believe that the PaaS model is based on the Service oriented architecture, this is the prime reason behind the security issues in PaaS as it incorporates the security issues of SOA in the form of a DOS attack, the other issues in cloud computing are associated with the involvement of the third party in the cloud service departments. According to me, the other kind of attack in IaaS is XML related attack, dictionary attack, input validation related attack and replay attack. Any issue related with the PaaS infrastructure leads to a total breakdown of the entire cloud service department. I think any change in the secured optimized environment where the cloud consumers can install applications and data sets is prone to vulnerabilities and it needs maximum security according to me.

SaaS issue: For me, this is the most vulnerable component in cloud computing as it is the place where both the cloud owners and cloud consumers work. This phase of the cloud computing faces lots of hostile conditions as a wide range of people access this area, also I believe that the risk mitigation standards used in SaaS are Oauth, XACML, SAML and SPML.

Cloud management security issue

According to me, the cloud management layer is the main security concern regarding the cloud management security. The different components of a cloud management layer such as service monitoring, billing, elasticity, security management. Any breach in any of the components will lead to a severe security issue in the whole cloud services (Sen 2014).

Cloud Access methods security issues

I believe that there is an issue related to the protection of data, and it is the main point of concern regarding the cloud management security issues. The issues arise when data is transferred between the cloud platform and the consumers (Wei et al. 2014).

Recommendations

According to me, there are different kinds of issues related to the cloud computing, this section will be recommending few steps which will be helping to reduce those existing security issues. The backup of the data should be stored locally, installing effecting antivirus in the system which accesses files from the cloud, use of complex alphanumeric login credentials regarding both cloud system and system from where the data is being retrieved (Feng, Wang and Li 2014.). I think that the rules and regulations of the different cloud service provider need to be clear between all the parties which are involved in the process. The use of encrypted cloud service should be encouraged by the cloud consumers.

Conclusion

From the above report I conclude that cloud computing is one of the most used computing models all around the world and its business reach is increasing everyday there are different types of issues related with each module of the cloud computing such as the issues related to IaaS, issues related to PaaS and the problems related with SaaS. Along with that, I also believe that the other kinds of issues related with the cloud security are cloud management security issue and cloud access methods security issues. I have prepared this reflective report by focusing on the different techniques by which the security of the cloud services can be increased significantly.

References

Feng, N., Wang, H.J. and Li, M., 2014. A security risk analysis model for information systems: Causal relationships of risk factors and vulnerability propagation analysis. Information sciences, 256, pp.57-73.

Kim, D. and Solomon, M.G., 2016. Fundamentals of information systems security. Jones & Bartlett Publishers.

Rao, R.V. and Selvamani, K., 2015. Data security challenges and its solutions in cloud computing. Procedia Computer Science, 48, pp.204-209.

Rittinghouse, J.W. and Ransome, J.F., 2016. Cloud computing: implementation, management, and security. CRC press.

Sen, J., 2014. Security and privacy issues in cloud computing. In Architectures and protocols for secure information technology infrastructures (pp. 1-45). IGI Global.

Wei, L., Zhu, H., Cao, Z., Dong, X., Jia, W., Chen, Y. and Vasilakos, A.V., 2014. Security and privacy for storage and computation in cloud computing. Information Sciences, 258, pp.371-386.