Cloud computing: a review of security issues and solutions

Cloud computing technology is an old concept which has become one of the most widespread technologies in the last few years. It is a pay-per-use service which enables users to perform computing services anytime and anywhere as long as an internet connection is available. There are four major cloud deployment models: public, private, community and hybrid. The cloud’s prominence originates from its valuable advantages. However, security issues threatening data confidentiality, integrity, availability and auditing in the cloud might hamper this technology diffusion. Thus, deciding whether or not to move to a cloud service provider, or rely on available IT resources to run a business, is indeed a critical step. This paper presents an overview of cloud computing and describes this technology in detail. It also summarises most of the current security issues menacing the cloud providers and users, and presents and summarises the available countermeasures to the proposed security issues.