What is Cloud Computing and why have people started to use it?

The usage of the internet has increased massively in last few years, which increases the cost of hardware and software. The new technology of Cloud Computing has been used to solve all these issues by providing online service, which reduces the cost of hardware and software effectively.

Cloud Computing is architecture or it can be defined as a type of internet service, which is designed to provide shared resources and computing services via the internet on demand over centralized server resources on a scalable platform. Cloud Computing allows customers to share resources like networks, storage, servers, services and applications without physical devices, on a pay-per-use basis.

There are three major cloud computing service categories:

Software as a Service (SaaS)	Platform as a Service (PaaS)	Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS)
These are applications hosted by third party providers. Customers are able to use them over the internet. Pay-as-you-use model. Examples: Salesforce, NetSuite	Third-party application development platform and services built on its own infrastructure. Again these tools are made available to customers over the internet. Examples: Google App Engine, AWS Lambda	Third-party servers, storage, computing resources available for customers. Customers can use IaaS to build their own PaaS and SaaS service. Examples: Google Cloud Compute, Amazon S3

Major security issues on implementing Cloud Computing Services

Cloud Computing is known as an emerging domain, the security of the data must be protected over the network. There are many issues in cloud computing but security is the major issue.

• Misuse of Cloud Computing

Some criminals like Hackers and spammers can take advantage of the suitable registration, easy procedures and unspecified access to cloud services to launch malicious attacks like key cracking.

• Insecure Application Programming Interfaces (API)

Customers handle and interact with cloud services by interfaces or API. Service providers must make sure that the security is integrated into their service models, while users must be aware of the security risks.

• Wicked Insiders

Malicious insiders pose a greater threat in the Cloud Computing environment because consumers do not understand the providers’ policies and procedures. Malicious insiders may gain unauthorized access to the organization and its assets.

• Shared Technology issues/multi-tenancy nature

This is based on a shared infrastructure and does not apply to multi-tenant architectures.

• Data Crash

Compromised data may include deleted or changed data without backup, unrecorded with larger environments, lost encoded keys and illegal access to sensitive data.

• Account, Service & Traffic hijacking

Account or service hijacking is usually done using stolen certificates. Such attacks include phishing, fraud, and exploitation of software vulnerabilities. Attackers can access key areas of Cloud Computing services such as confidentiality, integrity and service availability.

• Unidentified Risk Report

Cloud services mean that organizations are less involved in software and hardware, so organizations should be aware that internal security, security compliance, auditing and logging issues may be overlooked.

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