The Security Challenges in Cloud Services

The following three contributions address the issue of cloud hosting and the challenges of delivering secure data environments to enterprise customers. In addition, the measures taken to combat these challenges are discussed, whether physical risks for hosting platforms or cybercrimes.

The need for secure data

The concept of security in all aspects of computing can be divided into two areas, namely, the preservation of data and the control of data. The first of these concerns is the ability to ensure that data is not lost or damaged, whether confidential (ie private) or not. Data retention can be critical for effective business operations, such as contacting suppliers/customers or monitoring and analyzing business performance (Business Intelligence). In many cases, companies have an obligation of secrecy of data for certain periods of time by regulatory agencies to provide audit trails to their activities, and if the data relating to customers, suppliers or employees are considered as personal, sensitive or private, are also companies requires data protection laws to obtain this information

The second problem concerns the risk that confidential data will be seen by those who should not have access to it. Again, privacy laws govern companies when it comes to obtaining personal information only with the permission of a person and then ensure that they control who has access, which restricts unjustified access. However, companies also always want to maintain their own private business to avoid competitors taking advantage of it.

(Jason Baumbach) entire IT infrastructure faces these security problems, whether personal or business computing, and this has been a particular challenge for cloud computing in general, including cloud-based hosting.

The weak points

Cloud computing services eventually require physical server networks to create the set of computational resources that customers can use to access their computers as a service, which means that all the resources in the cloud always have a physical location. In addition, cloud services are based on a point where the end user can access them, often available to the public on the Internet, and to transfer the data used by the service, of course, a public network such as the Internet. Each of these three elements of a typical public cloud service has its own vulnerabilities in the protection and preservation of data.

Physical security

In terms of the physical infrastructure used to build a service in the cloud, many of the security challenges are the same as with any other hosting platform. To ensure data security, providers must first keep the infrastructure secure and operational, and the data centers that host servers in the cloud make a great effort to do so. In terms of access, they ensure that facilities are protected against unauthorized personnel through the use of tools such as biometrics, security cameras, security guards and limited access to individual server suites. This not only controls the risk of intentional sabotage or physical attacks but also the risk of accidental damage caused, for example, by a technician who handles the servers of another company.

In addition, servers and network infrastructures are protected against physical damage by modern fire protection systems and environmental controls, such as temperature management. The temperature control of the data center is one of the main problems for data center providers due to a large amount of heat generated by the servers in operation. The objective of the exercise is to make sure that the servers can reach their optimum temperatures. However, if they are not activated, the damage caused can take the server completely offline. The data centers use techniques such as chillers, ventilation, and water cooling to regulate the temperature and keep the servers running smoothly.

Cloud servers and their networks also benefit from the overall experience of data center providers to keep their hardware up to date and ensure that the chances of other hardware failures are reduced. As with alternative hosting solutions that place servers in data centers, such as placement, dedicated hosting, and private virtual server (VPS).

Therefore, it is of utmost importance that the IT service providers that administer the data can see where the data is stored in the services they provide, how it can be accessed and whether it is safe. However, the abstraction of cloud services, in particular, can be a challenge for those who use it to store or process data because they can not necessarily guarantee where that data is at any given time. Physical location and guardianship may be obscured, and data hosting sometimes crosses different locations, geographic boundaries, and even jurisdictions.