Towards analyzing data security risks in cloud computing environments

Abstract

There is a growing trend of using cloud environments for ever growing storage and data processing needs. However, adopting a cloud computing paradigm may have positive as well as negative effects on the data security of service consumers. This paper primarily aims to highlight the major security issues existing in current cloud computing environments. We carry out a survey to investigate the security mechanisms that are enforced by major cloud service providers. We also propose a risk analysis approach that can be used by a prospective cloud service for analyzing the data security risks before putting his confidential data into a cloud computing environment. © 2010 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg.