Cloud Security: A Comprehensive Guide to Secure Cloud Computing

Chapter 5. Cloud Computing Security Challenges

In these days, a man who says a thing cannot be done is quite apt to be interrupted by some idiot doing it.

—–Elbert Green Hubbard (1865–1915) U. S. author, editor, printer

The introduction of cloud services presents many challenges to an organization. When an organization migrates to consuming cloud services, and especially public cloud services, much of the computing system infrastructure will now be under the control of a third-party Cloud Services Provider (CSP).

Many of these challenges can and should be addressed through management initiatives. These management initiatives will require clearly delineating the ownership and responsibility roles of both the CSP (which may or may not be the organization itself) and the organization functioning in the role as customer.

Security managers must be able to determine what detective and preventative controls exist to clearly define the security posture of the organization. Although proper security controls must be implemented based on asset, threat, and vulnerability risk assessment matrices, and are contingent upon the level of data protection needed, some general management processes will be required regardless of the nature of the organization's business. These include the following:

• Security policy implementation

• Computer intrusion detection and response

• Virtualization security management

Let's look at each of these management initiatives.

Security Policy Implementation

Security policies are ...