Determining The Cloud Computing And Compliance Issues

Your paper this week should explain in your own words the responsibilities of auditors in understanding the security risks facing their organization with the use of cloud services. How has auditing's role changed as we've moved from client-server architecture to the cloud model? Include steps auditors must take to assess the level of compliance of the CSP with standards. Provide examples of how auditors assure due diligence when it comes to security and risk.

Organizations use the Cloud in a variety of different service models (SaaS, PaaS, IaaS) and deployment models (Private, Public, Hybrid). There are a number of security issues/concerns associated with cloud computing but these issues fall into two broad categories: Security issues faced by cloud providers (organizations providing software-, platform-, or infrastructure-as-a-service via the cloud) and security issues faced by their customers.In most cases, the provider must ensure that their infrastructure is secure and that their clients’ data and applications are protected while the customer must ensure that the provider has taken the proper security measures to protect their information.

Federal organizations are moving their services to the cloud to minimize their software and infrastructure footprint and to save money, time, and resources. As cloud service providers (CSPs) are becoming prevalent, we must analyze the security of these services to ensure compliance with standards and laws that protect customers, citizens, and information. Therefore, this paper analyzes a new federal cloud compliance program called the Federal Risk and Authorization Management Program (FedRAMP). This paper also establishes that FedRAMP can indirectly aid federal government organizations to be compliant with the following laws: Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA); the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA); the International Traffic in Arms Regulations (ITAR); and the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS). This paper will briefly explain these four laws and cloud computing discussions regarding these laws. This paper will also explain FedRAMP and the way it can help federal organizations to be complaint with these laws.

The first scenario that will be examined is looking at Cloud Computing from the perspective of security. Many small and medium sized businesses utilize the internet and Cloud Computing to conduct business and transfer money from system to system as well as report on financial accounting data. With that being the case, it is crucial that whatever system the business is working with pays very close attention to security needs to ensure that this data is protected from unauthorized sources viewing or manipulating it.

To understand the public cloud computing environment that is being offered by the cloud providers. The responsibilities of an organization and the cloud providers vary depending on the service model. Any organization should understand and organize the process of consuming the cloud services and also keep an eye on the delineation responsibilities over the computing environment and implicate security and privacy. Assurances or certification and compliance review entity paid by the cloud providers to support security or privacy should be well verified time to time by organization through independent

A lot has being said concerning issues surrounding the law and cloud computing. Some of these issues include privacy and data security concerns and laws and regulations. Regardless of what cloud computing models an organization uses, both the cloud provider and the consumer ha to operate under this laws. Therefore both parties need to have a broad knowledge of the these laws such as data breaches, information ownership and control and how close customers can manage risk both at the federal and state levels.

To understand the public cloud computing environment that is being offered by the cloud providers. The responsibilities of an organization and the cloud providers vary depending on the service model. Any organization should understand and organize the process of consuming the cloud services and also keep an eye on the delineation responsibilities over the computing environment and implicate security and privacy. Assurances or certification and compliance review entity paid by the cloud providers to support security or privacy should be well verified time to time by organization through independent assessment.

This journal examines the various types of threats that a cloud-based company has to defend against. The authors recognize that the cloud has the potential to be a disruptive force in technology, and it examines the concerns that a business has for migrating to the cloud through the use of surveys. The benefits and risks are examined and the article provides statics and charts to illustrate the findings. The most interesting point of this article is it highlights the concerns customers have listing security as the number one reason preventing a business from migrating to the cloud. I plan to use this article to explain the challenges developers face in securing data on the cloud, not only with application development but also with educating businesses to alleviate misconceptions on cloud computing.

The high regard to cloud computing is on the rise due to its ability to improve flexibility, expand access to data, and lower costs. Cloud computing release organizations from being required to have their hardware and software infrastructure from being acquired and maintained (Holt, Niebuhr, Aichberger, & Rosiello, 2011). On the other hand, while there is much noise being made about the benefits of cloud computing, questions have been brought up with respect to whether cloud computing is safe especially when it comes to its privacy, security, and reliability. The purpose of this paper is to discuss the different general controls and audit approaches for software and architecture, cloud computing, service-oriented architecture, and virtualization. This paper gives a summary analysis of the recent research that is available. Additionally, risks and vulnerabilities associated with public clouds, private clouds, and hybrids have also been researched. Within the research conducted, there are important examples provided. Recommendations are shown on how organizations could implement and mitigate these risks and vulnerabilities. This paper even outlines a list of IT audit tasks that focuses on a cloud computing environment due to the results of the analysis, the risks and vulnerabilities, and the mitigation controls.

According to Prasad, Gyani and Murti (2012), “Cloud computing can be defined as a new style of computing in which dynamically scalable and often virtualized resources are provided as a service over the Internet” (p.7). This statement is from five years ago, and although cloud computing is no longer considered new, this definition still describes what cloud computing means today. Cloud computing being private or public is becoming more primordial in the IT sector due to the numerous advantages it gives to its end users (Basmadjian et al. 2012). Since the interest in cloud computing keeps on increasing, efforts need to continue to evaluate current trends in security and privacy. Cloud computing

The main issue that slows down the growth of cloud computing is security. No matter how many security management tools are released or assurances of reliability are made, complications with data privacy and data protection continue to plague the market. Covering all potential security issues in this article is simply impossible. This is because of the fact that we 're still discovering many of the security issues which challenges cloud computing as it is still a work-in-progress. Cloud Computing is rapidly evolving and hence what we see today may quickly become irrelevant.

DATA SECURITY IN CLOUD COMPUTING Introduction: Cloud computing has prompted a movement in how individuals consider IT frameworks structural engineering. Numerous associations today are either executing cloud-based services, or assessing which cloud-based measures they will be portraying later on. As indicated by Gartner Inc. distributed computing is "no less compelling than e-business". This sprocess in building design from an undertaking normal server-based framework to a cloud-based framework will have related expenses of passage and dangers, yet it can bring about inconceivable advantages in reserve funds and in IT and business deftness.

Cloud computing is the service in the internet which can be accessible with web browser. The most of the business nowadays shifted toward the cloud computing which will decreased the overload data store problem and increased the security. Cloud computing cut the cost of the business and will increase the efficiencies. In the recent years there is the significant transitions in the business by the use of the cloud computing from desktop based to the software as a service (SaaS). There are many benefits from using the cloud computing in the business but there is always serval question arise regarding the legal practitioners and security when we compared it with the traditional way.

Representatives of most IT companies, particularly call centers, use cloud computing software to allow connectivity and sharing of resources in company data centers (Beverakis, Dick, & Cecez-Kecmanovic, 2009). Cloud computing software is an advanced tool used in outsourcing, particularly for communications, because of the capacity to collect and access massive amounts of data. This software is commonly operated in a data center, which allows access to associated data in a variety of ways (Anthes, 2010). Because most call centers operate using cloud computing, third-party IT contracting security is a primary concern (Anthes, 2010; Gatewood, 2009).

Usage of remote servers via internet to store, manage and process data instead of using a personal computer is known as Cloud computing. It’s a set of Information Technology services with the ability to scale up or down their service requirements. Most of the cloud services are provided by a third party service provider. In cloud computing, organizations can utilize IT services without in advance investment. Despite its benefits obtained from the cloud computing, the organizations are slow in accepting it due to security issues and challenges. Security is one of the major problems which hinder the growth of cloud. It’s not wise to handing over the important data to another company; such that clients need to be vigilant in understanding the risks of data infringement in this new environment. This paper discusses a detailed analysis of the cloud computing security issues and challenges. (Ayoleke)