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Cloud vulnerabilities

Cloud vulnerability can be defined as a weakness in any part of the cloud environment and can be used by a potential attacker for personal gain. Some common vulnerabilities are:

  1. Session riding: When attackers use the information from cookies to perform data theft or any similar cyber crime, it is referred to as session riding. Tricking users into sending authenticated requests to fake websites is another form of this vulnerability.
  2. Virtual Machine Escape: Any vulnerability in the hyper-visor paves the way for potential attacks on the hyper-visors as well as for all virtual machines running on top of it. This vulnerability, though rare, still exists and can cause serious damage in the worst cases.
  3. Reliability and Availability: Availability of the cloud service directly translates to business value for the client. However, power outages, technical glitches and natural disasters are some common sources that lead to cloud downtime. While a very minimal downtime for maintenance purposes cannot be avoided, it is important for the cloud service provider to create a sense of reliability through unprecedented service levels.
  4. Insecure Cryptography: Cryptographic algorithms used to generate random numbers must provide a large entropy pool for maximum data protection. In the case of random number generators that offer only a small entropy pool, easily guessable numbers could leed to security issues.
  5. Data Portability: There may be several reasons for an organisation to move its data from one cloud service provider to another. Unsatisfying performance, finding a cheaper option or the cloud service provider running out of business could be some possible reasons. In any case, data backup must be in place, and the old cloud service provider must delete 100% of the data owned by the previous client organisation.
  6. Vendor Lock-in: Do you want to be stuck with one single cloud service provider forever? The answer is definitely no, given that the IT needs keep changing for every organisation and another provider in the industry may just come up with the most perfect solution for your current needs.
  7. Internet Dependency: The internet is the unsung hero of the entire cloud setup. An unfailing internet service provider is what an organisation needs to achieve 100% success in the cloud. This is especially critical for key applications like the ones running in hospitals that could cost human lives in the worst case.

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