What are cloud security responsibilities?

Here, we’ll take a look at the different aspects (or responsibilities) of cloud computing security, what they mean and how they differ.

User Security

User security refers to any preventive, protective, detective, and corrective security activates done at the user level.

Some examples are access restriction, authentication, physical constraints, etc.

Data Security

Here we need to ensure that we protect and secure the data. The three most important aspects of data security are:

• Integrity: we make sure that the data is processed properly and represents the purpose intended. We have to make sure that data has not been changed.
• Availability: we must make sure we do not make computing devices unavailable by authorised people. Data and processing should be available for the user any anytime.
• Confidentiality: we must make sure that data is disclosed only to authorised people.

Application Security

Application Security refers to making all the applications in the cloud as secure as possible.

Middleware Security

Middleware is the layer between the operating system and other software. Middleware security ensures that this level provides a secure interface for the application components to interact with the operating system and applications. This includes authorisation and control management, authentication, automatic configuration, etc

Operating System

Here we manage and ensure that all hardware resources and the operating system itself are safe and secure. Operating system security focuses on preventing unauthorised access, malicious activities, and destructive behaviours. There are several detective and corrective methods.

Virtualisation Security

The main objective of virtualisation security is to secure all application programming interfaces (API). Different applications and even computers communicate through APIs, this security is essential to provide reliable communication between different software and platforms. In virtual security, virtual network transmissions become secure using virtualisation security methods and practices. We do this using firewalls and anti cyber-attached systems.

Infrastructure Security

They divide infrastructure security into network security and physical security. In network security, the main goal is to make the network of the cloud as secure as possible. They prevent, detect, and correct any suspicious actions by carefully monitoring and controlling access to different resources. In physical security, the cloud computing infrastructure should be physically protected and probed. This includes personnel authorisation, access cards, security cameras, and security personnel.

Additional Resources

Shahzad, F. (2014). State-of-the-art survey on cloud computing security challenges, approaches and solutions. Procedia Computer Science, 37, 357-36S

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Stephen Hawking