Essay on Cloud Computing Risks

Introduction

As cloud-based computer solutions continue to take the reins from traditional premise-based computing, need for more powerful cybersecurity strategies for cloud computing becomes apparent. Unlike traditional private network architectures, it is hard to lock down cloud mode of computing with monitoring tools, and firewalls as different organizations sharing from the centralized cloud data centre require unique security approaches. This implies that the enterprise shoulders the role of cloud security. For any enterprise, managing security in the cloud becomes very much different compared to traditional network architecture. In the conventional IT environments, corporate parameters of a network extended to physical firewalls and in some cases to offices and other locations. The traditional network parameter idea is no longer the same in cloud computing. Public cloud solutions, services, and software as a service (SaaS) are spread out to the perimeters of the network which is marked by an end user or any device. In traditional network architecture, data stored within it is owned and its access tightly controlled by the organization. Traditionally, data administration and control were straightforward, but in cloud computing, organizations have to determine who controls their data as well as what their cloud providers can see bringing in the need to encrypt data stored on the cloud at different encryption levels as well as secure authentication (Kinsella, 2012). It also becomes necessary for the organization to vet cloud providers' SIEM, logging and monitoring systems, maybe by picking hints from practices employed in traditional network infrastructure.

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Unlike in the case of premise-based network infrastructure where the organization is entirely in control of its network, cloud data protection involves determining who controls what on the cloud between the cloud providers and the organization. Visibility level and control at hand over cloud services are precisely what the organizations will need to determine as this affects everything including the performance and intrusion detection. However, overall data governance calls for expert services. Also, cloud computing has over the years evolved to mean a variety of services and solutions and hence more complex than traditional network architecture. Unlike the traditional network architecture, cloud data lacks tried-and-true-cloud security approach across the platform as service (PaaS), IaaS, SaaS or database as a service (DaaS) solutions.

On matters pertaining IT security, cloud computing has been marked by a somewhat bad reputation. Experts, digital paranoids, and cloud haters have labelled cloud computing as just as risks and jam-packed with security flaws as any other data centre, web service or other computerized structure developed for the use of naturally flawed humans (UBM, 2012). Wozniak even suggested that intensive reliance on cloud computing is going to be horrendous. Extending the traditional security perimeter into private, public and hybrid cloud computing architectures stretches the traditional tools of security capabilities. New blind spots and security holes that were not in existence before are now created. However, cloud security is growing stronger day after day, and very soon cloud security tools will become better than any non-cloud parameter security architecture.

In numerous ways, cloud security is picking up on an inherent shortcoming. Providers of cloud services are in an extraordinary position to assimilate large measures of information. This is so because huge clouds are geographically scattered in server farms the world over. Thus they can pull in a wide range of security intelligence as information streams in and out of the cloud. This insight would then be utilised to track security dangers and stop them much more rapidly.

At the point when enterprises fully embrace the idea of distributed computing, it doesn't turn out to be primarily an augmentation of the traditional network architectures. It turns into the central focus. End-clients get to the cloud through any number of different entry points, for example, private WANs or the general population Internet. Cloud computing being centralized for customers' entry, it turns into the perfect area for securing customer/server correspondences and also for the sole purpose of administering encryption keys.

Conclusion

Finally, as distributed computing develops alongside software-defined innovations, it takes into account end-to-end visibility from a security assurance endpoint. At no other time have IT security heads could make software overlays, which entirely intents and purposes to straighten networks with the goal that security stances can be streamlined and less demanding to oversee. For quite a long time, distributed computing advanced at a quicker rate than cloud security could ensure it. However, beginning in 2015 and beyond, that gap appears to close.

References

Kinsella, J. (2012, September 26). 5 (more) key cloud security issues | CSO Online. Retrieved from https://www.csoonline.com/article/2132313/cloud-security/5--more--key-cloud-security-issues.html. Accessed On 05/03/2018.

UBM. (2012, August 10). The Biggest Cloud Computing Security Risk Is Impossible to Eliminate | Network Computing. Retrieved from https://www.networkcomputing.com/careers/biggest-cloud-computing-security-risk-impossible-eliminate/1650208298/page/0/1. Accessed On 05/03/2018.