Mitigation Techniques to Security Flaws in Cloud Computing

Abstract

The advent of Cloud computing signifies a paradigm shift in traditional computing systems. It is one of today's most exciting technologies due to its ability to reduce costs associated with computing while increasing flexibility and scalability for computer processes. Organizations have expressed concern about critical issues (such as security) that exist with the widespread implementation of cloud computing. These types of concerns originate from the fact that data is stored remotely from the customer's location. In this paper, two research methodologies are adopted and utilized. These are Systematic Literature Review, Survey and interviews with various users working in the Cloud Computing environment. Conclusively, some eight (8) security challenges were identified along with its mitigation techniques. The most measured attribute is confidentiality (31%) followed by integrity (24%) and availability (19%). The impact of identified mitigation techniques is mainly on security (30%), followed by performance (22%) and efficiency (17%). Furthermore, two of such security threats; Data Loss/Leakage and Insecure Application Programming Interfaces are duly reviewed and mitigations proposed in this paper.