Cloud Computing: Benefits and Security Threats

Most organizations have started using the cloud followed by COVID-19 due to various factors. Since cloud computing is a trending technology being used throughout the world, just knowing its applications is not enough. We will analyze the benefits of cloud computing along with some prominent threats to cloud security. Knowing about security threats is equally important when considering the benefits of using the cloud because cloud computing is also vulnerable to cyber threats like traditional IT infrastructure.

What is Cloud Computing?

Cloud computing refers to the technology that allows business organizations to use third-party data centers located off-site for hosting their data, apps, and servers. It is estimated that cloud computing would become more popular than ever because it helps organizations to start and run their businesses easily (e.g., they can set up their servers easily, cut the costs of hardware procurement and maintenance, etc.)

Various cloud computing vendors are available in the market that offers cloud services that are helpful for organizations to grow their businesses. These vendors include Amazon Web Services, Google Cloud Platform, Oracle Cloud, and Microsoft Azure. Cloud service providers offer various cloud services to business organizations such as Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS), Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS), Software-as-a-Service (SaaS), Recovery-as-a-Service (RaaS), etc.

Benefits of Using Cloud Computing

Cloud computing is getting popular due to the numerous benefits it offers to business organizations. Some of the benefits offered by cloud computing are discussed below:

• Cost Savings: With cloud computing, organizations could save on the costs that they would spend on hardware procurement and maintenance, data center maintenance and other capital expenses.  This provides them with a chance to invest the saved money in other important tasks to grow their businesses.

• Enhanced Security: Cloud service providers (CSPs) offer a wide range of security controls, policies, and technologies that help to secure organizations’ cloud environments from various cybersecurity threats and attacks. Moreover, CSPs adhere to various industry security and compliance standards, which makes them more secure and reliable.

• Flexibility: Cloud computing offers flexibility in terms of buying cloud services as well as providing efficient and on-demand services. Organizations can scale up/down cloud services as per their requirements. They can also buy/terminate any service as per their needs. Organizations need to pay only for the resources they use.

• Disaster Recovery: Organizations can use cloud computing for disaster recovery purposes because cloud service providers offer disaster recovery (DR) services at a much lower cost than the cost required to set up and operate separate on-premises DR environments.  During disasters or emergencies, cloud computing ensures the availability of services and applications with no downtime by providing quick data recovery.

• Mobility: By using cloud services, organizations can allow their employees to connect to their corporate network from anywhere and at any time. Employees or users can access cloud services from any part of the world. This means employees can access the corporate data hosted in a cloud environment easily.

• Automatic Software Updates: Updating application software is no more a hassle with cloud computing. Cloud-based apps update their software automatically without the intervention of the IT team.

• Reliability and Performance: As CSPs have their data centers worldwide, the services offered by them are highly reliable. Data across the data centers is replicated to ensure data backup is always available. This makes business continuity and disaster recovery a lot easier. Also, cloud services offer better performance and low network latency due to the use of sophisticated technologies.

Threats to Cloud Security

Though cloud computing provides multiple advantages, it does have some security risks/threats. Some important cloud security threats and their precautionary/mitigation measures are discussed below:

Improper Identity and Access Management (IAM)

Improper identity and access management (IAM) refers to not configuring IAM properly, which opens security loopholes that can be exploited by attackers. This security threat is most common because improper identity and access management allows attackers to hijack user accounts easily.

Causes: Not having multi-factor authentication (MFA) enabled, not using strong passwords, and not rotating certificates and cryptographic keys are common causes of this security threat.   

Mitigation/Prevention: To eliminate this security threat, enable MFA, have a strong password policy, and rotate certificates and cryptographic keys.

Data Breach

A data breach involves exposing confidential data to untrusted or unauthorized users. Data breaches can cause the loss of reputation and business to organizations.

Causes: Handling huge amounts of customer data, poor security measures, targeted attacks, absence of MFA, etc., can cause data breaches.

Mitigation/Prevention: To mitigate this security threat, enable MFA, implement a perimeter firewall between a public network and a private network, and enable encryption for data-at-rest.

Insecure APIs

Cloud services are provisioned, managed, and monitored using APIs. If APIs are not secure (not configured properly), attackers can access cloud services and perform malicious activities.

Causes: The causes of this security threat include negligence, weak authentication and access control, no encryption, etc.

Mitigation/Prevention: This security threat can be mitigated by implementing the security measures such as enabling MFA, performing system security audits, using SSL/TLS encryption for data transmission, and performing penetration testing.

Misconfigured Cloud Storage

When cloud storage is not configured properly, it becomes vulnerable to various attacks and breaches. It is similar to the insecure APIs threat as both threats involve not configuring security settings properly, which allows attackers to exploit vulnerabilities.

Causes: The causes of this threat include keeping default cloud security settings, mangled data access (keeping data access open to all without authorization), and mismatched access management (granting an unauthorized user unintentional access to sensitive data).  

Mitigation/Prevention:  Avoid this security threat by implementing security measures like double-checking security configurations while setting a cloud server and utilizing specialized tools (including third-party tools) to check security configurations.

DoS Attacks

A Denial of Service (DoS) attack makes a cloud service inaccessible for legitimate users by overloading the service with multiple requests that cause the service to stop or shut down.

Causes: DoS attacks occur when attackers target a cloud service by sending multiple requests that consume all the system resources, resulting in making the service inaccessible for legitimate cloud users.

Mitigation/Prevention: Prevent and mitigate this security threat by source rate limiting, blocking the IP addresses that are the source of the attack, using latest Intrusion Detection Systems (IDS), and using a firewall to check the incoming traffic’s source and destination addresses.

Insufficient Due Diligence

Insufficient due diligence refers to not taking necessary steps (from planning to execution) to avoid problems that may arise due to switching to the cloud.

Causes: The causes for the security threat include not developing a proper roadmap before switching to cloud computing, improper planning, and not taking necessary steps in CSP selection, etc.

Mitigation/Prevention: Prevent this security threat by exercising due diligence in all the stages such as planning to switch to the cloud, building a roadmap to the cloud, and CSP selection.

Vulnerabilities Caused Due to Using Shared Technology

Cloud computing platforms provide various cloud services by using the same physical infrastructure. Due to using the same hardware for running various services, some vulnerabilities arise like unauthorized access to one tenant’s data by another tenant.

Causes: The main cause for this threat is having improper isolation between tenants’ environments in a multi-tenant cloud.

Mitigation/Prevention: Implement strong isolation between cloud tenants’ environments by applying security controls on the underlying shared infrastructure.

Data Loss

Data loss is a security threat that involves losing data due to any reason. Data loss may occur due to various reasons, including accidental data deletion by the CSP, earthquakes, fire, etc.

Causes: The common causes include data modification, data deletion, loss of access (e.g., due to losing encryption keys), and unreliable storage outage (data is lost due to some issues at the CSP’s end).

Mitigation/Prevention: Take regular backups and use the Geo-diversity feature (having duplicate data copies in multiple data centers) to avoid data loss in emergencies like outages and disasters.

Wrapping Up

While using cloud services, cloud security plays a crucial role as any security loophole will lead to a security breach, which may have an adverse impact on IT and business operations. Cloud security ensures that any security issues such as the ones listed above are not present in your cloud environment.

Stay tuned for more articles on cloud computing!