A Review on Security Risks Involved with Cloud Providers

Clouds provide a powerful computing platform that facilitates individuals and organizations to perform variety levels of tasks such as: use of online storage space, adoption of business applications, development of customized computer software, and creation of a "realistic" network environment. Usually cloud computing services are delivered by a third party provider who owns the infrastructure. In previous years, the number of people using cloud services has drastically increased and lots of data has been stored in cloud computing environments. In the meantime, data breaches to cloud services are also increasing every year due to hackers who are always trying to exploit the security vulnerabilities of the architecture of cloud. In this paper, various security threats to the traditional systems and risks inherited to the virtual systems are examined. The latter half of the paper focus on the various information security threats an ITprofessional/firm should consider while deploying a cloud from the vendor and cloud service models are discussed.