Securing the Skies- A Critical Analysis of Cloud Infrastructure Vulnerabilities

Background/Objectives: The rapid growth of cloud computing has become a remarkable in many sectors including educational sectors. Cloud computing is the essential tool, which can be used to enhance the accessibility of quality education.In realityusers of cloud computing in Saudi Arabia are facing many challenges due to lacks of regulation compliance, security, privacy, and confidentiality. Research in the field of challenges and barriers in cloud computing is very limited; moreover, there is very little information available in this area especially in legal aspects. Methods: This study focuses on the challenges and barriers, which affects cloud computing in higher education in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. The study applied a qualitative and quantitative method throughout the discussion and analysis on current issues and challenges in Cloud Computing in educational sectors in Saudi Arabia. Findings: Majority of the respondents agreed that privacy, security and confidentiality are the issues that need immediate attention of lawmaker. These issues and challenges act as a barrier for adoption of cloud computing in education sector in Saudi Arabia. There is no specific privacy protection law in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, only effective laws will avoid the challenges and barriers related to the privacy and security issues in cloud computing. Cloud computing provides an opportunity for the educational institutions to share the data with students, professors, and authorized person. Sharing of information needs strict regulations on data confidentiality, security and how well the privacy of the institution is maintained. Application: Different threats are involved when managing the privacy and sharing of data in the cloud. It is significant to determine the causes of issues and carry out a necessary solution to solve the problem. To ensure an appropriate balance between the number and strength of controls and the risks associated with cloud computing solutions, state agencies and organizations should work together. Keywords: Cloud Computing, Confidentially, Educational Sectors, Privacy, Regulations, Security

Cloud computing is the emerging way of computing that is being used by wide range of users. At present 80 % of workload is on cloud. There are many safety risks in cloud computing, “Cloud Security Alliance” (CSA) listed top 7 security threats as Maltreat and Obnoxious utilization of cloud, Uncertain API, Vicious Infiltrators, Distributed mechanism challenges, Information drop, Unidentified Risk Report and Account, Service and Traffic Hijacking. An IT company spends 42 percent of its funds for the security of cloud and 80 percent of the funds will be bounded to attain the solution to security issues. Researchers have proposed no. of solutions to cloud security. Proposed solutions fall under three primary categories, Cryptographic, data storage and data semantics. In this paper we have reviewed the concerns in cloud computing with some of the subsequent proposed models to tackle the security issues in cloud computing.

Objective: The purpose of this paper is to rectify the aspects that leads the acceptance of cloud based E-learning services and why it is plagued by security issues despite its numerous advantages and find out the possible solutions to the problems. So this study highlights the security threats with cloud based e-learning and the precaution acquired recently on those problems. Method: This paper used both theoretical and empirical studies. Empirical study is done by the information congregated using numerous cloud based e-learning solution vendors websites. On the other hand, theoretical study is made by examining several research articles linked to our theme areas. Based on this analysis it identify different security threats in cloud service delivery model through the object to recommend a solution in the procedure of security measures related to the cloud based e-learning. Projected practice certifies data availability and offers solution to secure essential data from the invaders. Findings: The project edupshot of this study is to highlight the vital security threats and concerns occupied on when executing the cloud computing for e-learning systems. We do attempt to exploit the security concerns that e-learners and the end-users of cloud based e-learning solutions desire to acquire it from the cloud based e-learning solution vendors. This study finds diverse security issues in cloud service by an object to advocate a resolution in the form of security dealings linked to the cloud based e-learning. Traditional E-Learning approaches are merged with cloud computing technology to give enormous benefits to the academic users but it compromises on security facets. This study of E-Learning advocate’s users to acquire the data in the cloud via a secured layer using the internet. Cloud based E-Learning is a way to lessen cost and density of data retrieving, which are handled by third party services. Improvements: The study does not explore negative aspects that may deject acceptance of cloud-based services. However, we have just discussed cloud computing and its service and have presented ways by which the present security issues in cloud computing can be resolved.Keywords: Cloud Service, Data Availability, Measures, Security Risk, Solution, Threats

Privacy and security issues in cloud computing: The role of institutions and institutional evolution

This article discusses data security issues in cloud computing. It is the study of data in the cloud and its associated security issues. This article will introduce data protection procedures and global practices to insure that data are protected as much as possible by reducing risks and threats. Keeping data in the cloud has been beneficial for many applications, but it creates risks by exposing data to applications that are already weakly secured. Similarly, if the reliability of the guest process (which may have a vulnerability) is unknown when running on a hypervisor, using cloud computing virtualization can lead to the exposure of dangerous information. The white paper will also provide insights into security information in transit and at rest. Learn all levels based on SaaS (Software as a Service), PaaS (Platform as a Service) and IaaS (Infrastructure as a Service)

<p>Cloud computing services enabled through information communication technology delivered to a customer as services over the Internet on a leased basis have the capability to extend up or down their service requirements or needs. In this model, the infrastructure is owned by a third party vendor and the cloud computing services are delivered to the requested customers. Cloud computing model has many advantages including scalability, flexibility, elasticity, efficiency, and supports outsourcing non-core activities of an organization. Cloud computing offers an innovative business concept for organizations to adopt IT enabled services without advance investment. This model enables convenient, on-request network accessibility to a shared pool of IT computing resources like networks, servers, storage, applications, and services. Cloud computing can be quickly provisioned and released with negligible management exertion or service provider interaction. Even though organizations get many benefits of cloud computing services, many organizations are slow in accepting cloud computing service model because of security concerns and challenges associated with management of this technology. Security, being the major issues which hinder the growth of cloud computing service model due to the provision of handling confidential data by the third party is risky such that the consumers need to be more attentive in understanding the risks of data breaches in this new environment. In this paper, we have discussed the security issues, the challenges and the opportunities in the adoption and management of cloud computing services model in an organization.</p>

Cloud Computing is a way to deal with fabricate the breaking point or incorporate capacities effectively without placing assets into new system, planning new staff, or approving new programming. They have various potential purposes of intrigue and various attempt applications and data are moving to open or half and half cloud. However, regarding some business-fundamental applications, the affiliations, especially considerable attempts, still wouldn't move them to cloud. The market gauge the Cloud Computing shared is as yet far behind the one expected. From the clients' perspective, Cloud Computing security concerns, especially data security and security confirmation issues, remain the basic inhibitor for gathering of Cloud Computing organizations. In this paper, we present a diagram on data security and security protection issues related with Cloud Computing over all periods of data life cycle. Firstly,, we moreover focus a related works and after that we show unpretentious components of Cloud Computing security issues, and a short time later data security and insurance affirmation issues, and a while later we display some present courses of action in cloud. Finally, we look at future work about data security and security affirmation issues in cloud. Keywords: cloud computing; security deployment; privacy protection infrastructure.

Security issues in cloud computing have become a hot topic in academia and industry, and CP-ABE is an effective solution for managing and protecting data. When data is shared in cloud computing, they usually have multiple access structures that have hierarchical relationships. However, existing CP-ABE algorithms do not consider such relationships and just require data owners to generate multiple ciphertexts to meet the hierarchical access requirement, which would incur substantial computation overheads. To achieve fine-grained access control of multiple hierarchical files effectively, first we propose an efficient hierarchical CP-ABE algorithm whose access structure is linear secret sharing scheme. Moreover, we construct an attribute-based hierarchical access control scheme, namely AHAC. In our scheme, when a data visitor’s attributes match a part of the access control structure, he can decrypt the data that associate with this part. The experiments show that AHAC has good security and high performance. Furthermore, when the quantity of encrypted data files increases, the superiority of AHAC will be more significant.

Security issues in cloud computing is one of the major reasons in slowing down its adoption by businesses and among these issues: weak user authentication. In fact, the use of text password is still relatively widespread, especially, for authentication in a cloud environment. Therefore, numerous approaches have been proposed to overcome this problem such as graphical passwords, biometric scans and 3D password objects. In this paper, we propose a cloud-based two-factor authentication framework called Two Levels Authentication Cloud (2LAC). The framework uses an image and a secret watermark as factors of authentication. Experimental results illustrate that 2LAC offers an efficient mechanism for enhancing user authentication in the cloud environment and can eliminate common types of attacks.

Purpose This study/ paper aims to empirically examine the user attitude on perceived security of enterprise systems (ES) mobility. Organizations are adopting mobile technologies for various business applications including ES to increase the flexibility and to gain sustainable competitive advantage. At the same time, end-users are exposed to security issues when using mobile technologies. The ES have seen breaches and malicious intrusions thereby more sophisticated recreational and commercial cybercrimes have been witnessed. ES have seen data breaches and malicious intrusions leading to more sophisticated cybercrimes. Considering the significance of security in ES mobility, the research questions in this study are: What are the security issues of ES mobility? What are the influences of users’ attitude towards those security issues? What is the impact of users’ attitude towards security issues on perceived security of ES mobility? Design/methodology/approach These questions are addressed by empirically testing a security model of mobile ES by collecting data from users of ES mobile systems. Hypotheses were evolved and tested by data collected through a survey questionnaire. The questionnaire survey was administered to 331 users from Chinese small and medium-sized enterprises (SME). The data was statistically analysed by tools such as correlation, factor analysis, regression and the study built a structural equation model (SEM) to examine the interactions between the variables. Findings The study results have identified the following security issues: users’ attitude towards mobile device security issues; users’ attitude towards wireless network security issues; users’ attitude towards cloud computing security issues; users’ attitude towards application-level security issues; users’ attitude towards data (access) level security issues; and users’ attitude towards enterprise-level security issues. Research limitations/implications The study results are based on a sample of users from Chinese SMEs. The findings may lack generalizability. Therefore, researchers are encouraged to examine the model in a different context. The issues requiring further investigation are the role of gender and type of device on perceived security of ES mobile systems. Practical implications The results show that the key security issues are related to a mobile device, wireless network, cloud computing, applications, data and enterprise. By understanding these issues and the best practices, organizations can maintain a high level of security of their mobile ES. Social implications Apart from understanding the best practices and the key issues, the authors suggest management and end-users to work collaboratively to achieve a high level of security of the mobile ES. Originality/value This is an empirical study conducted from the users’ perspective for validating the set of research hypotheses related to key security issues on the perceived security of mobile ES.

Job scheduling system problem is a core and challenging issue in Cloud Computing. How to use Cloud computing resources efficiently and gain the maximum profits with job scheduling. Job scheduling system is one of the Cloud computing service providers’ ultimate goals. In this paper, firstly, by analysis the differentiated QoS requirements of Cloud computing resources users’ jobs, we build the corresponding non-pre-emptive priority M/G/1 queuing model for the jobs.Then, considering Cloud computing service providers’ destination which is to gain the maximum profits by offering Cloud computing resources, we built the system cost function for this queuing model. After that, based on the queuing model and system cost function, considering the goals of both the Cloud Computing service users and providers, we gave the corresponding strategy and algorithm to get the approximate optimistic value of service for each job in the corresponding no-pre-emptive priority M/G/1 queuing model. Finally, we also provide corresponding simulations and numeral results.Analysis and number results show that our approach for job scheduling system can not only guarantee the QoS requirements of the users’ jobs, but also can make the maximum profits for the Cloud computing service providers.While the economic case for cloud computing is compelling, the security challenges it poses are equally striking. In this work we strive to frame the full space of cloud-computing security issues, attempting to separate justified concerns from possible over-reactions. We examine contemporary and historical perspectives from industry, academia, government, and “black hats”. We argue that few cloud computing security issues are fundamentally new or fundamentally intractable; often what appears “new” is so only relative to “traditional”computing of the past several years. Looking back further to the time-sharing era, many of these problems already received attention. On the other hand, we argue that two facets are to some degree new and fundamental to cloud computing: the complexities of multi-party trust considerations, and the ensuing need for mutual audit ability.

Cloud computing is based on utility and consumption of computer resources. To solve the security issues in cloud computing, secure computing protocols are often used. Recently, rational parties as a new kind of parties are proposed, who wish to maximize their utilities in secure computing protocols. The utility definitions in most previous rational secure computing protocols derive from prisoner's dilemma game (PD game). In two-party rational computing protocols, parties decide to send their shares according to their utilities. Recently, we revisit the incentives for rational parties in secure computing protocols and give new utility definitions according to them. We find that the new utility definition is not similar to PD game any more. We discuss two-party and multi-party cases, respectively, and prove that parties have incentives to send their share to others. Furthermore, we also prove that parties can maximize their utilities in both cases.

Many organizations in education, healthcare, banking and the corporate sector are tending towards the use of cloud computing technology due to its efficiency and human resource savings. Organizations do not need to purchase infrastructure or data centres and can rent access for various applications to use over a network. The services provided by cloud computing are pay-per-use based, which reduces the overall cost. Cloud computing depends entirely on internet service over a network, with customers able to access data through data centres maintained by ISPs such as Google or Amazon. Cloud computing has great potential but faces many challenges to ensure security and privacy. This chapter describes various models of cloud computing, such as IaaS, PaaS and SaaS. Security and privacy concerns faced by the cloud computing environment are also addressed.

Being distributed in nature, Cloud is an in-use technology over the last decade where the data is stored on the Cloud service provider’s site where the data owner does not have direct access to the storage where her data is stored. This leads to severe security issues. Out of various such issues, data correctness or integrity is one of the major aspects of Cloud data storage security. Researchers have been exploring the options of using blockchain technology to address the data storage correctness concern in Cloud computing. Blockchain technology has provided a new dimension to address the traditional security issues in computing technologies, where every transaction is treated as an atomic operation, and once performed, it becomes immutable. The transactions are stored in a block, and such blocks are linked together to form a chain through a cryptographic hash code. Such chains are distributed in nature in the sense that there is no single central administrative authority to manage them, and any node in the network can verify the correctness of data or transaction. In this paper, we intend to make an exhaustive study on various alternatives to solve the data integrity issues in Cloud computing using blockchain technology. Being distributed, immutable, transparent, cost effective and efficient to use, blockchain is definitely a solution to many issues including Cloud data storage security problems.

Spreading of Cloud Computing draws users to ask for service provide that is more improved, faster, and securer. So, there come security issues in Cloud Computing continuously and there have been a lot of studies on authentication and accee control. Provisioning is a technology related to the process and action that prepare knowledge and resources and supply what needed in advance to find the opitimum among them. Provisioning is one of the technologies to make Cloud Computing more efficiently. This paper proposes an authentication for provisioing in Cloud Computing.KeywordsAuthenticationProvisioningRBACCloud Computing