The Risks & Challenges Associated with Cloud Computing

 Migrating to the cloud offers many benefits, but it’s also crucial for businesses to consider the risks and challenges that come with it. 

-Data Security-

Lack of Control Over Data:

Fundamental concerns involve data security, where organizations lack control over their data, which is stored on remote servers by cloud service providers. 90% of organizations have concerns and have raised questions about how their data is managed and protected from unauthorized access. The lack of visibility of security practices and infrastructure of the service providers, along with the uncertainty in shared responsibilities between the providers and the organization, cause skepticism. A common concern for organizations is that they aren't certain that they have employees with the necessary expertise to execute their part in the management.  


IAM & Privileged Access Abuse:

Another crucial aspect to consider is Identity and Access Management (IAM). IAM in an organization controls who has permission for access. On the cloud, managing confidential information across multiple cloud environments is more complex. Major security risk: Privileged access abuse is when an internal or external unauthorized user (e.g. Hacker, former employee) gains access to an administrator account and causes damage to private data by deleting, corrupting or giving themselves more access with malicious intent. This makes up 74% of security breaches. Therefore, it’s essential to have strong IAM controls like Multi-factor Authentication (MFA) and Privileged Access Management (PAM) to secure and monitor administrator accounts. This also highlights the importance of agility when it comes to departing employees, as it raises the risk of rogue access. 


Domain Name Systems:

Computers find each other through the Domain Name Systems (DNS), also known as the address book for the internet. It can become a security risk in the cloud if the DNS security is poor, giving unauthorized access for someone to manipulate it and freely redirect users to wrong or malicious websites that steal user data. (DNS spoofing, hijacking, tunnelling, etc) Common strategies to mitigate attacks on DNS by organizations: Authentication and integrity checks, having strong access controls so only authorized users can make changes, and rate limiting/filtering to block malicious DNS traffic. However, cloud service providers usually offer tools to enhance DNS security, providing a lot of DNS visibility to help organizations respond to attacks. (Azure DNS Analytics, GCP Cloud, etc)



-Over-Reliance on Internet Connections-

Reliance on internet connections for cloud computing creates gaps that pose risks. If there were any disruptions in the internet, there are risks of loss of critical data, data and application inaccessibility and potential delay in business operations. To prepare for instances like these, it's smart for organizations to plan for potential outages and find the perfect balance between using cloud services and having critical functions that can operate offline, also known as a hybrid model. 






-Vendor Lock-in-


When an organization becomes too reliant on a single cloud provider, it is called a Vendor Lock-in. It poses a risk for organizations when switching providers. The main issue is the high switching costs, emphasizing the need for flexibility, control and diversification like a multi-cloud strategy.  







-Cost Challenges-


Ironically, the cloud offers cost savings as well as cost challenges. For organizations, managing how much they spend on cloud services can be challenging. Since cloud computing is a provided service, the costs don’t usually stay constant over time, and prices can fluctuate unpredictably. Having a financial officer who can understand the changes in the expenses, data storage, and usage spikes and provide flexibility in the organization’s budget can reduce the complex side of financials, but having an expert to manage them also comes with costs. 




-Scarcity of Cloud Expert-


A significant challenge is that the constant and rapidly changing technology requires experts who can keep up and upgrade their expertise every time technology evolves. Finding those individuals and keeping them as an employee is first, difficult to find due to scarcity and second, expensive to retain because of their high demand from other organizations. The shortage of cloud experts poses a challenge as it will be more difficult for the business to adopt cloud-related technology that could offer benefits, as well as the costs to invest in employee training. 

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