Top Security Threats with Cloud Computing

Last Updated on 2 years by Touhid

Security is a major concern in cloud computing system all over the world. In this post, we will cover different types of security threats with cloud computing and prevention tips. Cloud security is the process of keeping your cloud service safe and secure. That means the storage data are preventing it from being stolen, leaked, deleted or unauthorized access.

Security Threats with Cloud Computing

There are different types of security threats with cloud computing such as data breaches, human error, malicious insiders, account hijacking, and DoS attacks.

1. Data Breach
2. Malicious Insiders
3. Data Loss
4. Denial of Service (DoS) Attack
5. Data Availability
6. Account Hijacking
7. Weak Password

1. Data Breach

A data breach is a cloud computing security threats in which sensitive information is viewed, stolen, or used by an unauthorized users or programs. The issue of leaks or loss of data is the most common threat to cloud computing system.

Typically, it occurs when an application is attacked by cyber attackers who are able to gain unauthorized access to the cloud system to view, copy, and transmit of your business data.

Data breaches can damage a company’s reputation, brand which affect company’s market value, intellectual property (IP) and financial expenses.

Tips

Encryption is a technique which is the best way to protect your data in cloud computing.

Learn More About Encryption.

2. Malicious Insiders

Malicious insiders are another security threats of cloud computing. The people who are authorized to manage the user’s data or who have access to the data such as database administrators, partners, and contractors of the cloud services company.

They are doing illegal activities such as they can steal or corrupt the data whether they are getting paid by other companies. In that case, cloud service providers may not be aware of that issue because of their inability to properly managing their employees.

Tips

To prevent from inside malicious attack cloud service provider can “create a system to notify them when data breaches happen”.

3. Data Loss

Data loss is security threats of cloud computing where data can lose in many ways such as technology fails, backup copies are lost, and servers’ crash. However, the most common factors for data loss in the cloud are as follows:

• Accidental Deletion
• Malicious attack
• Overwriting Data
• Data encryption
• Data backups and Recovery

Tips

To protect losing the data, here are the some important tips:

• Use a strong API between the cloud service provider and the client.
• Use encryption technology for data storage in cloud
• Specifying the backup and recovery strategies

4. Denial of Service (DoS) Attack

Denial of service (DoS) attack is one of the most harmful security threats with cloud computing which can shut down your cloud services and make them unavailable to your users and clients.

In DoS attack cyber-criminals can flood your targeted system or resource with huge amount of web traffic that your cloud servers are not able to access.

Learn more about Denial of service (DoS) Attack.

5. Data Availability

Data availability is a process which ensuring the data is available for uses anytime whenever needs it. It is very important for company because they are providing critical services so, their systems to be available all the time.

In cloud hosting, resources are shared by multiple clients. In that case, if an attacker uses all available resources then others cannot use those resources, as a result data will be unavailable which lead to denial of service attack. Sometimes could slow accessing those resources.

6. Account Hijacking

Account hijacking is dangerous security threats in cloud computing. It is a process where individual or organization’s cloud account is stolen, gain access of cloud computing services, compromising the confidentiality, integrity, and availability of services.

Even if you are using insecure passwords then hackers can “predict” the credentials and gain access to your cloud accounts, as a result, steal or control your cloud services.

In account hijacking, cyber-criminals use different types of techniques such as password cracking and phishing emails in order to gain access of victim’s accounts.

Tips

The best ways of prevent from account hijacking, you should do these:

• Create Strong password
• Don’t give out your password to others
• Keep your software updated with latest version
• Enable two-factor authentication to login
• Use a password manager

7. Weak Password

Weak password is another security threats with cloud computing system where hackers can easily “predict” the password. So, you have to create and use a strong password which can protect your cloud service from hacking.

Never use simple password to remember in mind such as date of birth, mobile no, employee id, student id, test123, 123456. However, here are some tips to create a strong password:

• The password length should be at least 10 characters long.
• The password doesn’t contain your user name, real name, company name or institution name.
• The passwords should contain uppercase letters (A – Z), lowercase letters (a – z), numbers (0 – 9), and special character (@, #, $, %, ^, (,), &, *!).
• Example for strong password:C#a25^ub@2is a strong password and standard password

It is strongly recommended that use strong and unique password for different account and change the password regularly (between 30 and 180 days).

Learn More about How to create a strong Password?

Conclusion

Finally, as a service provider or a client you have to take preventive measures to protect your application from cyber security threats in cloud computing. We have discussed different types of security threats with cloud computing and prevention tips also. Hope the article will be helpful for you.