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Security Considerations for Cloud Computing

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Security Considerations for Cloud Computing
Carlos Chandler

Abstract
Cloud computing is an emerging Information Technology (IT) model whereby a company utilizes a pay-per-use service for it computing needs rather than maintain a local data center run by its in-house IT department. By treating computing resources as a commodity or operating expense, it allows firms to focus less on IT and more on the core elements of the operations strategy. Because of advantages like this, its popularity has grown exponentially in recent years. However, cloud computing also has certain inherent risks in its present form. This paper seeks to understand the key advantages driving businesses to adopt this computing model in ever increasing numbers, …show more content…

Lastly, cloud computing makes possible all kinds of operations innovations since the businesses computing resources are now accessed over the internet, and is thereby available to users anywhere that has internet access.
Despite these advantages, cloud computing carries with it some inherent risks that need to be evaluated before a firm makes the decision to adopt this computing model. In order to eschew the in-house data center and IT department for a cloud-based solution, a business must hand over its most sensitive data to a third party service provider—this requirement carries with it major drawbacks, as we will see. A recently conducted survey of nearly 300 IT Experts done by the Journal of Computer Information Systems found the three primary concerns are loss governance, service availability, and information security (Dutta, Peng, & Choudhary, 2013).
Loss of Governance
One of the unavoidable risks in cloud computing is the loss of governance of the firm’s data. The business must hand over the processing of its most sensitive data to a third party service provider whose computers could be anywhere in the world. This means the oversight and enforcement of access controls to company data usually afforded by in-house IT departments is bypassed, as observed by researchers doing a case study of Swiss companies (Brender & Markov, 2013). As vendors seek locations where labor and electricity are at lower costs, data may be

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