Cloud Computing Security--Trends and Research Directions

Abstract

Cloud Computing is increasingly becoming popular as many enterprise applications and data are moving into cloud platforms. However, a major barrier for cloud adoption is real and perceived lack of security. In this paper, we take a holistic view of cloud computing security - spanning across the possible issues and vulnerabilities connected with virtualization infrastructure, software platform, identity management and access control, data integrity, confidentiality and privacy, physical and process security aspects, and legal compliance in cloud. We present our findings from the points of view of a cloud service provider, cloud consumer, and third-party authorities such as Govt. We also discuss important research directions in cloud security in areas such as Trusted Computing, Information Centric Security and Privacy Preserving Models. Finally, we sketch a set of steps that can be used, at a high level, to assess security preparedness for a business application to be migrated to cloud.