Cloud computing is a technological process of transparent access of different services which are classified as infrastructure as a service (IaaS), software as a service (SaaS), and platform as a service (PaaS). Here, each service has its unique functionalities to support the client’s requirements. On the basis of service type, the client can select their required service from the cloud which collectively stores all services in one place. On this page, the scholars can grasp the information about the Recent Cloud Security Topics with its future research directions!!!

The critical challenge in cloud computing is cloud security for protecting cloud data and infrastructure. Cloud security is the mechanism of trying out all possible approaches to shield the entire cloud system from cyber threats/attacks. When we talk about cloud security, it is necessary to have familiarity with the following key terms which are highly used in all cryptographic techniques for achieving data protection.

What are the terms in Cloud Computing Security?

  • Keys – Input to perform encryption or decryption process for verifying the source/destination identity
  • Plaintext – Original understandable information collected from source and pass as an input to algorithms
  • Sender and Receipts – Users who wish to share the data over the network 
  • Encryption Algorithm – Encoding the plain text by substituting permutations to yield the ciphertext
  • Ciphertext – Unreadable encoded information which is generated after performing encryption method
  • Decryption Algorithm – Contrary process of an encryption algorithm which changes the ciphertext into plain text 

The cryptographic method has the potential capability to secure cloud data through mathematical codes. Primarily, it is intended to assure data secrecy and integrity in a cloud environment. Further, it is classified based on the following aspects to deal with different kinds of requirements.

  • What way keys are used? 
    • Symmetric
    • Asymmetric
  • What means the plain text is handled?
    • Stream Ciphers
    • Block Ciphers
  • What manner plain text is transformed into cipher?
    • Concealment
    • Substitution
    • Transportation

By the by, it also incorporates several mathematical procedures/algorithms to ensure the security of the cloud. Each algorithm has unique functionalities to do like cipher key generation, authentication, data veracity, user privacy, etc. Majorly, it is classified into two categories which is given below,

Cloud Security Algorithms

  • Asymmetric Algorithms
    • Diffie-Hellman Key Exchange
    • EI-Gamal Encryption Algorithm
    • Rivest–Shamir–Adleman (RSA)
    • Digital Signature Algorithms (DSA)
  • Symmetric Algorithms
    • RC5 Algorithm
    • Data Encryption Standard (DES)
    • Triple-DES (3DES)
    • Advanced Encryption Standard (AES)
    • Blowfish Encryption Algorithm

The conventional encryption method is a very basic solution in cryptography to provide potent privacy for cloud environs. It can give the only preliminary level of network security. More than this, there are so many security issues that are still under the research stage.

Novel Cloud Security Topics for PhD and MS Scholars

Recent Research Challenges in Cloud Security Topics 

  • Cloud Services Nefarious Usage and Abuses 
  • Restricted Cloud Visibility and Control
  • Failures of Metastructure and Applistructure 
  • Lack of Security in Cloud APIs and Interfaces 
  • Insider Threat Detections
  • Cloud Account Hijacking
  • Inadequate Key Management and User Access 
  • Insecure Methodologies and Structural Design 
  • Lacking Identity and Credential Info
  • Insufficient Change Control and Misconfiguration 
  • Internal and External Data Security Breaches
  • Cloud Platforms Compliance Issues on Industry Regulations
  • Cloud Data Privacy Issues 
  • Service level agreement (SLA) Violation
  • Cloud Data Management Challenges
  • Live VM Migration Problems
  • Single and Multi-Tenancy Cloud Issues
  • Lack of Service Availability and Reliability 
  • Attacks of Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) 

So far, we have debated on cloud computing, critical challenges in cloud security with their importance of research. Now, let’s see how the research cloud security topics is carried out and what are their aim and objectives.

Cloud Security Research Aim and Objectives 

Aim

The main aim of cloud security is to give a protective cloud environment for both personal and business users to safely adopt realistic computing solutions. For that, we undergo a thorough survey on all recent research papers. Through this, we analyze their security challenges and inadequate mitigation approaches.   

Objectives

  • Collect the security challenges that do not identify the mitigation policies
  • Find the areas that fail to address the well-defined mitigation schemes for security
  • Investigate the current security issues in cloud computing with their proposed solutions from collected works
  • For reference, gather the organizational followed practices and solutions with no mitigation approaches

Specifically, there are three most important research areas in security that every scholar needs to know. And they are privacy-preserving models, information-centric security, and trusted cloud computing. Since all the assured security futures are majorly recognized in these areas only. So, we are passionately working on these areas to build unbreakable solutions through our incredible research ideas. Here, we have specified some operations on the client and own side that apply to assure cloud security.  

Cloud Security Algorithms and Methods 

Owners Side Security

  • Creation of Secure Index 
  • Encode and Decode

Users Side Security

  • Identity Management 
  • Authentication 
  • Authorization 
  • Access Control

Certainly, these solutions take effective actions against cloud data theft, deletion, leakage, alteration, and disaster. On account of this, we can use any security technologies such as firewalls, VPNs, and tokenization. Beyond this, we have a vast number of Cloud Security Topics in all other security respects. 

Nowadays, countless corporates/organizations are employing cloud services for their business purpose. So, it is essential to guarantee security over their data and applications. By assuring the following key features, we can attain effective security measures for cloud security,

  • Integrity
  • Privacy
  • Availability

To the end, we enumerated some performance evaluation parameters used for assessing the cloud environment and efficiency of the proposed security technologies. These metrics are common for all cloud security-related projects and also vary based on project needs.

Cloud Security Performance Metrics

  • Reliability
  • Availability (P=µ/(µ+λ))
  • Rate of System Recovery (µ) 
  • Meantime between Disruption (m= 1/λ)
  • Maximum Unit Capacity 
  • Total Number of Service Demands
  • Mean Time to Recovery (MTTR r= 1/µ)
  • Disruption Rate (utilizing security breaches λ) 

Overall, if you are seeking for Best Cloud Security Topics then approach our technical team. We will let you know all upcoming research trends in Cloud security areas.