Cloud Computing Security Issues And Solutions

Abstract:
The development of cloud computing services is speeding up the rate in which the organizations
outsource their computational services or sell their idle computational resources. Even though
migrating to the cloud remains a tempting trend from a financial perspective, there are several
other aspects that must be taken into account by companies before they decide to do so. One of
the most important aspect refers to security: while some cloud computing security issues are
inherited from the solutions adopted to create such services, many new security questions that
are particular to these solutions also arise, including those related to how the services are
organized and which kind of service/data can be placed in the cloud.

Introduction:

Security is considered a key requirement for cloud computing consolidation as a robust and
feasible multi-purpose solution. This viewpoint is shared by many distinct groups, including
academia researchers, business decision makers and government organizations. The many
similarities in these perspectives indicate a grave concern on crucial security and legal obstacles
for cloud computing, including service availability, data confidentiality, provider lock-in and
reputation fate sharing. These concerns have their origin not only on existing problems, directly
inherited from the adopted technologies, but are also related to new issues derived from the
composition of essential cloud computing features like scalability, resource sharing and
virtualization (e.g., data leakage and hypervisor vulnerabilities). The distinction between these
classes is more easily identifiable by analyzing the definition of the essential cloud computing
characteristics proposed by the NIST (National Institute of Standards and Technology) in, which
also introduces the SPI model for services (SaaS, PaaS, and IaaS) and deployment (private,
public, community, and hybrid).

Cloud computing security

Key references such as CSA’s security guidance and top threats analysis ENISA’s security
assessment and the cloud computing definitions from NIST highlight different security issues
related to cloud computing that require further studies for being appropriately handled and,
consequently, for enhancing technology acceptance and adoption. Emphasis is given to the
distinction between services in the form of software (SaaS), platform (PaaS) and infrastructure
(IaaS), which are commonly used as the fundamental basis for cloud service classification.
However, no other methods are standardized or even employed to organize cloud computing
security aspects apart from cloud deployment models, service types or traditional security
models
1. Network security:

Problems associated with network communications and configurations regarding cloud

computing infrastructures. The ideal network security solution is to have cloud services as an
extension of customers’ existing internal networks, adopting the same protection measures and
security precautions that are locally implemented and allowing them to extend local strategies to
any remote resource or process.

2. Interfaces:

Concentrates all issues related to user, administrative and programming interfaces for using and
controlling clouds.

3. Data security:

Protection of data in terms of confidentiality, availability and integrity(which can be applied not
only to cloud environments, but any solution requiring basic security levels).

4. Virtualization:

Isolation between VMs, hypervisor vulnerabilities and other problems associated to the use of
virtualization technologies.

5. Governance:

Issues related to (losing) administrative and security controls in cloud computing solutions. 

Security Issues:
Some Security Issues based on networks are

 Port Scanning: HTTP is always open as most connections are established on it, so
intruders can access through this port.
o Solution: Encryption.
 Incomplete Deletion: Multiple copies of data exist as backups on the cloud and it is
possible that the deleted data may exist somewhere as a backup.
o Solution: Use virtualized private network
 SSL: “Secure Socket Layer” exists between two communicating layers and may not be
configured properly and a third party may access the data.
o Solution: Proper Configuration.
 Network Sniffing: Unencrypted data may be stolen.
o Solution: Ingrained encryption.

Some Security Issues based on access are:

  XML Signature Attack: Insertion of a new message in the body of the original.
 Browser Security: Browser cannot generate token of authentication and lead to hacking.
o Solution: Encryption in transport layer.
 Malware Injection Attack: Malicious data is inserted into the original data.
o Solution: Use hashing.
 Flooding: Unnecessary messages that stop services from being availed by other users.
o Solution: Use scheduling.

Components of Cloud Computing

Solutions:
Cloud Computing allows users to store data on remote servers that they do not own. These cloud
services are provided by the CP (Cloud Provider). Only the CP has access to data security details, and the
users cannot have any information about data integrity being lost. The system must maintain the data in a
cryptographic manner so that only the users have the right to access the original data. This is done with
the help of some encryption and decryption algorithms. Advanced Encryption Standard (AES) is used to
ensure data integrity. It creates a digital signature that is verified by the Digital Signal Algorithm (DSA).
In this way only the user has the rights to make any changes in the data and the changes are encrypted
again. Cryptography is helpful in securing data and it can provide data security in backups, network
traffic, and file system. It is implemented using symmetric and asymmetric algorithms. Some crucial
symmetric algorithms are DES, AES and 3DES.

1. Find Key Cloud Provider

First solution is of finding the right cloud provider. Different vendors have different cloud IT security
and data management. A cloud vendor should be well established, have experience, standards and
regulation. So, there is not any chance of cloud vendor closing.

2. Clear Contract

Contract with cloud vendor should be clear. So if cloud vendor closes before contract, enterprise can
claim.
3. Recovery Facilities

Cloud vendors should provide very good recovery facilities. So, if data are fragmented or lost due to
certain issues, they can be recovered and continuity of data can be managed.

4. Better Enterprise Infrastructure

Enterprise must have infrastructure which facilitates installation and configuration of hardware
components such as firewalls, routers, servers, proxy servers and software such as operating system, thin
clients, etc. Also, should have infrastructure which prevents from cyber attacks.

5. Use of Data Encryption for security purpose

Developers should develop the application which provides encrypted data for the security. So additional
security from enterprise is not required and all security burdens are placed on cloud vendor. IT leaders
must define strategy and key security elements to know where the data encryption is needed.

6. Prepare chart regarding data flow

There should be a chart regarding the flow of data. So, the IT managers can have idea where the data is
for all the times, where it is being stored and where it is being shared. There should be total analysis of
data.

Conclusions

Cloud Computing is a relatively new concept that presents a good number of benefits for its users;
however, it also raises some security problems which may slow down its use. Understanding what
vulnerabilities exist in Cloud Computing will help organizations to make the shift towards the Cloud.
Since Cloud Computing leverages many technologies, it also inherits their security issues. Traditional
web applications, data hosting, and virtualization have been looked over, but some of the solutions
offered are immature or inexistent. We have presented security issues for cloud models: IaaS, PaaS, and
IaaS, which vary depending on the model. As described in this paper, storage, virtualization, and
networks are the biggest security concerns in Cloud Computing. Virtualization which allows multiple
users to share a physical server is one of the major concerns for cloud users. Also, another challenge is
that there are different types of virtualization technologies, and each type may approach security
mechanisms in different ways. Virtual networks are also target for some attacks especially when
communicating with remote virtual machines.

[1] Chen, Deyan, and Hong Zhao. "Data security and privacy protection issues in cloud computing." 2012
International Conference on Computer Science and Electronics Engineering. Vol. 1. IEEE, 2012.

[2] Chen, D., & Zhao, H. (2012, March). Data security and privacy protection issues in cloud computing.
In 2012 International Conference on Computer Science and Electronics Engineering (Vol. 1, pp. 647-
651). IEEE.

[3] Chen, Deyan, and Hong Zhao. "Data security and privacy protection issues in cloud computing."
In 2012 International Conference on Computer Science and Electronics Engineering, vol. 1, pp. 647-651.
IEEE, 2012.
[4] Chen, D. and Zhao, H., 2012, March. Data security and privacy protection issues in cloud computing.
In 2012 International Conference on Computer Science and Electronics Engineering (Vol. 1, pp. 647-
651). IEEE.

[5] Chen D, Zhao H. Data security and privacy protection issues in cloud computing. In2012 International
Conference on Computer Science and Electronics Engineering 2012 Mar 23 (Vol. 1, pp. 647-651). IEEE.