Cloud Computing Security Issues and Challenges

Cloud computing is a set of IT services that are provided to a customer over a network on aleased basis and with the ability to scale up or down their service requirements. Usually cloudcomputing services are delivered by a third party provider who owns the infrastructure. Itadvantages to mention but a few include scalability, resilience, flexibility, efficiency andoutsourcing non-core activities. Cloud computing offers an innovative business model fororganizations to adopt IT services without upfront investment. Despite the potential gainsachieved from the cloud computing, the organizations are slow in accepting it due to securityissues and challenges associated with it. Security is one of the major issues which hamper thegrowth of cloud. The idea of handing over important data to another company is worrisome; suchthat the consumers need to be vigilant in understanding the risks of data breaches in this newenvironment. This paper introduces a detailed analysis of the cloud computing security issuesand challenges focusing on the cloud computing types and the service delivery types.