An outline of the organizational challenges while identifying incidents in cloud environments
Cloud computing mainly provides data or services from data centers, and the services or data are available on the internet. However, it can be assessed only by the authenticated device. However, a range of security incidents can occur when resources are moved to a cloud environment. The organization faces considerable challenges while operating within inside the cloud. The cloud handlers are supposed to analyze the risks and probable incidents. Within a cloud-based environment, information exchange often becomes a challenge. Without clarity, the organization cannot detect or handle the incidents. The main challenges have been outlined below-
- The structure and operations of the organization as a functional entity is severely affected. For instance, the reputation of the organization might be affected when it acts as a “co-tenant.” The changes that might occur in the cloud environment, including termination or provider failure, will severely affect the business entity as they are sharing the same source.
- The cloud service provider might pose technical risks in the form of malicious attacks (both insider and outsider). The probability of data leakage across a range of communication channels is highly challenging for the organization (Pichan, Lazarescu & Soh, 2015).
- The organization might face legal issues because data leakage will lead to an exchange of data among various nations. Nations posses independent laws, regulations, or policies. Notably, privacy laws and requirements vary country-wise. Risks exist due to changes in the jurisdiction along with the level of obligation to the vendors.
- Since cloud computing is completely technology-based, the organization would face challenges associated with social engineering, lost backups, and loss of security logs.
- Another challenge is associated with customers. Confidentiality issues are likely to come up because within the cloud environment, data and information of various customers are gathered. Ensuring confidentiality becomes a challenge for the organization (Hove et al., 2014). Again, when one customer has been provided access to any data source, it is necessary for the organization to ensure that the customer does not get access to the information of another customer.
- The cloud environment is dynamic and constantly changing. Conducting incident analysis might be problematic because of redundancies existing within the cloud environment. Along with that, attacks from Botnet and misuse of the large infrastructure are rampant as well.
- Data source identification is also challenging because notably, while detecting incidents in PaaS and SaaS.
Hence, the challenges mentioned above are vital to consider when organizations are operating within a tech-based cloud environment. Incident handling requires enough resources. The issues can be resolved by ensuring the provision of infrastructure-based information. A basic level of information must be available to cloud customers. An understanding of the infrastructure of CSP might be vital for recovery and response. The CSIRT team is responsible for providing detailed information based on questions and queries (Adamov & Carlsson, 2016). Lastly, forensic analysis can be conducted by using the virtualization technique. The attacker can be easily traced using the technique.