What are the Major Security Risks of Cloud Computing?

In this article, we will explain to you why it's really risky to use cloud computing while using digital signage software and what are major security risks of cloud computing.

Introduction

We'll start this with a story...

One of our first customers in 2007 was a real estate agency in Vendée, France. This agency was already using digital signage hosted on the cloud to present the properties available for lease and sale, on 6 different screens in its shop window.

However, the company that provided the cloud based display service closed down. So the real estate agency was left in the lurch. They ended up with 6 screens that no longer worked. Our first software, "Vitrine Multimedia" (from the creators of Easy Multi Display) was born from seeing this customers need...

Here are some of the reasons that Cloud based solutions are not always the best way to go.

The 5 main reasons

• The existence of security breaches both on one of the logical layers of the Data Center and those resulting from human errors;

• Fragility in access and identity management. Although some providers reinforce authentication interfaces with other means such as certificates, smart cards, and many others;

• The use of insecure APIs for integrating applications with cloud services;

• Exploitation of operating system vulnerabilities on cloud servers and even on hosted applications;

• Account hacking, which is an old type of computer attack;

7 more reasons

• A malicious action initiated internally in the workforce of the supplier. An attacker in the Datacenter management team can easily compromise the confidentiality and integrity of hosted environments;

• Advanced persistent threats which consist of a form of attack where the hacker succeeds in some way in installing a device in the internal network of the organization, from which it can extract important or confidential data. It is a form of attack that is difficult to detect for a cloud service provider;

• Data loss that can be caused by a computer attack on the Data center, a physical attack, a natural disaster, or a human factor at the service provider;

• Deficiencies in internal adoption or cloud transition strategies. Companies or organizations do not often take into account all the security factors related to their operation before subscribing to a cloud service. Certain negligence, both in terms of application development and in terms of basic use, is sometimes fatal;

• Bad use of cloud technologies to hide identity and carry out large-scale attacks. Generally, these are accounts created during evaluation periods or accesses purchased fraudulently;

• Denial of service which is an attack that is making a service unavailable by an excessive consumption of resources such as processors, memory or the network. The idea for the hacker is to succeed in overloading the resources of the Data center to prevent other users from taking advantage of the services;

• The flaws linked to the heterogeneity of the technologies embedded in the internal architecture of the cloud, and the external architecture of interfacing with users.

The risks and losses

According to several audit experts, the risks and losses associated with cloud based solutions are constantly increasing and 8 times out of 10, the hacked company does not know it. Yet, many CIO's are struggling to get new budgets to prevent this increased risk. Some, short of arguments in front of their management, come to wish serious incidents. So the top-management becomes aware of the need to invest a little more in security. 

A CSI 40 CIO who estimated that the total number of "pirate" SaaS applications in his company was close to 100, learned from an audit that there were actually 2,500...

Unlike the competition, our applications do not use the cloud for all these reasons!

Do you still have problems?

If you still have questions or problems with your display or your setting, don’t hesitate to visit our F.A.Q, download our user guide or contact our customer service at support@easymultidisplay.com. We will be happy to help you and we would be delighted to hear your opinion!

Download our software

If you are interested in our Easy Multi Display software, click here to download our trial version.

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