Security and Privacy Issues in Cloud Computing

TL;DR

This paper discusses the rapid growth of cloud computing, highlighting its benefits and the significant security and privacy challenges it faces, along with potential solutions and future trends.

Contribution

It provides a comprehensive overview of cloud computing models, identifies key security and privacy challenges, and discusses possible mitigation strategies and future directions.

Findings

Security and privacy issues are major challenges in cloud adoption.

Proposed solutions can mitigate some security and privacy risks.

Future trends include evolving deployment models and regulatory frameworks.

Abstract

Cloud computing transforms the way information technology (IT) is consumed and managed, promising improved cost efficiencies, accelerated innovation, faster time-to-market, and the ability to scale applications on demand (Leighton, 2009). According to Gartner, while the hype grew exponentially during 2008 and continued since, it is clear that there is a major shift towards the cloud computing model and that the benefits may be substantial (Gartner Hype-Cycle, 2012). However, as the shape of the cloud computing is emerging and developing rapidly both conceptually and in reality, the legal/contractual, economic, service quality, interoperability, security and privacy issues still pose significant challenges. In this chapter, we describe various service and deployment models of cloud computing and identify major challenges. In particular, we discuss three critical challenges: regulatory, security and privacy issues in cloud computing. Some solutions to mitigate these challenges are also proposed along with a brief presentation on the future trends in cloud computing deployment.