A survey on security issues in service delivery models of cloud computing

Cloud computing is a way to increase the capacity or add capabilities dynamically without investing in new infrastructure, training new personnel, or licensing new software. It extends Information Technology's (IT) existing capabilities. In the last few years, cloud computing has grown from being a promising business concept to one of the fast growing segments of the IT industry. But as more and more information on individuals and companies are placed in the cloud, concerns are beginning to grow about just how safe an environment it is. Despite of all the hype surrounding the cloud, enterprise customers are still reluctant to deploy their business in the cloud. Security is one of the major issues which reduces the growth of cloud computing and complications with data privacy and data protection continue to plague the market. The advent of an advanced model should not negotiate with the required functionalities and capabilities present in the current model. A new model targeting at improving features of an existing model must not risk or threaten other important features of the current model. The architecture of cloud poses such a threat to the security of the existing technologies when deployed in a cloud environment. Cloud service users need to be vigilant in understanding the risks of data breaches in this new environment. In this paper, a survey of the different security risks that pose a threat to the cloud is presented. This paper is a survey more specific to the different security issues that has emanated due to the nature of the service delivery models of a cloud computing system. (C) 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.