Cloud computing is becoming the hotspot in the area of information technology. However, when examining its convenience and strong ability in data processing, we also find that great challenges appear in terms of data security and privacy information protection. In this paper, firstly, the current security and privacy information challenges have been surveyed. Second, the current security measures are summarized as well.
Different from the conventional computing models, cloud computing (Iosup et al., 2011; Prasad and Rao, 2014; Li et al., 2015; Yuriyama and Kushida, 2011; Mori et al., 2012; Raekow et al., 2013; Yao et al., 2013; Ye and Khoussainov, 2013; Zhu et al., 2013; Ronald et al., 2013; Narayana et al., 2014; Kong et al., 2016; Baek et al., 2010) combines many new factors including distributed computing and virtualisation together to form a novel mechanism which can be manageable and dynamically extended. Cloud computing security concerns all the aspects of making cloud computing secure. Many of these aspects are not unique to the cloud setting: data is vulnerable to attack irrespective of where it is stored. Therefore, cloud computing security encompasses all the topics of computing security, including the design of security architectures. However, cloud computing also has several special characteristics (Ryan, 2013; Chen et al., 2010; Kumar, 2010; Christodorescu et al., 2009): a Essentially, the cloud can be viewed as a shared resource, so we cannot guarantee that other sharers are not dangerous. In other words, we cannot confirm the legitimacy of other resources. b Insecure APIs and protocols may get the authority to access the data on the cloud. c Once the security mechanism falls, the illegal cloud provider is able to modify or delete the data in the cloud. d It is fine for the data in the cloud to open, but the extent should be limited. In order to overcome the above potential drawbacks, references (Chang et al., 2016; Ali et al., 2015; Naser et al., 20015; Xiang et al., 2015; Oscar et al., 2015; Rasheed, 2014; Feng et al., 2011; Lin et al., 2013; Wlodarczyk et al., 2009; Ai and Mukaidono, 2011; Hsu et al., 2011; Kryvinska et al., 2010; Siemens IT Solutions and Services, 2011) have proposed several novel models or approaches. For example, virtual machines can be deployed in the cloud to separate the processes. As regard the data security, an alternative is to deploy practical and feasible backup mechanism. Of course, several models are constructed to detect the improper modifications. Based on the content mentioned above, this paper presents a summary of cloud computing and related security challenges, and potential approaches in the field are proposed. The organisation of this paper is as follows. Section 2 introduces the classic theory of cloud computing. Section 3 presents solutions or potential ideas on the current issues existing in the cloud computing. Finally, Section 4 concludes the paper.
