Understanding Cloud Computing Vulnerabilities And Cloud Storage Services

Generally speaking, computer users have two broad choices when it comes to storage--self-storage using proprietary systems and cloud storage, which is off-site. Cloud storage offers benefits that include being able to access your stored items from anywhere anytime. The storage also provides secure backups of your files. The good news is that you don't necessarily need to pay for cloud storage because many storage services offer free accounts that provide a limited amount of storage.

Overall, I found that this article provided some great insight as to the proper security measures to ensure safe cloud computing. However, I also found the descriptions to be very vague. With an important topic such as cloud security, I found myself asking many questions as to how the aforementioned factors should be achieved, and thought that the article fell very short in addressing them.

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.

Cloud Computing has the potential to save a lot of money for the company. Cloud Computing is defined by NIST as “a model for enabling ubiquitous, convenient, on demand network access to a shared pool of configurable computing resources (e.g., networks, servers, storage, applications, and services) that can be rapidly provisioned and released with minimal management effort or service provider interaction.” (Mell, 2011) This means that instead of worrying about maintaining our own facilities we can pay monthly for a cloud service provider to do that for us. They will take care of all the

to note here is the fact that these services are provided over a network. Hence, typical

The following will take a look into what is could computing and what are the potential security issues, I will be covering topics such as why would a company use cloud computing and how could computing is beneficial for an organisation. I will also look into the security of cloud computing. I will then go on to discuss what is being done to combat these issues, touching on the policies used by Netflix, Sony and Apple.

Cloud computing facilities not only massive cost savings but also helps to increase the business continuity and agility. It is essential for SMEs to adopt this innovative technology due to the current economic constraints (Mell and Grance, 2009; Aljabre, 2012; Sultan, 2011). To adopt cloud they have the latest technology at hand which provide necessary tools to compete over the rivals and gain the competitive edge. SMEs staff can perform more innovative business operations rather not thinking much about the technical complexity.

In the present world, almost everyone is connected through internet to access anything via a single click. Some may prefer Facebook as their socializing media whereas others may use Twitter or LinkedIn. Similarly, some use Gmail account whereas others prefer Hotmail or Yahoo. All these can be accessed from anywhere in the world via any device such as laptop, smartphone, etc. There is no restriction to use it only from a specific device or using a specific network.

Going through reference papers that identify various security vulnerabilities currently present in Cloud Computing systems with respect to confidentiality and Integrity of client data.

“The cloud” is a phrase which is heard often, but also frequently misunderstood. Nowadays, when you hear it, it is probably not referring to the puffy white things floating in the sky, but it is more likely referring to a new computer technology. Most people do realize it is a technical expression, but cannot actually define it. Essentially, it is huge data centers housing hundreds of servers which hold considerable amounts of data. There are a number of corporations delivering cloud services, and the major players include Amazon, Google, Microsoft and Apple, to name a few. They provide individuals, small businesses and major corporations the opportunity to save costs on technology by storing data on their servers, which must then be accessed through the internet. So, with the rapid growth of cloud computing, more and more information is being stored on the internet. While the cloud does have many benefits such as low technology costs, more accessibility and highly trained IT professionals monitoring security, the data stored in the cloud is still at risk due to imminent privacy and security breaches such as government snooping as well as hacker theft and manipulation.

The sudden emergence of cloud storage has taken over organizations by storm. A recent study that was conducted, concluded that, the number of organizations using cloud storage has almost doubled in the last few years alone. And in addition, the public cloud service market will exceed $244 billion by 2017 (Baiju, 2014). Using the cloud can provide many competitive advantages for a business. This includes; usability, bandwidth, disaster recovery, and cost savings.

Cloud technology is the best way to offer any host services from the Internet. Small and large companies pursue the advantages of cloud technology, such as the resources and different services rather than build and maintain whole storage and computing setup at their location.

For the increased workloads of Webb’s store at different regional data centre it can use the cloud services from different vendor too. Along with AWS, Amazon

Cloud computing enables companies to consume compute resources as a utility -- just like electricity -- rather than having to build and maintain computing infrastructures in-house.

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