Security and privacy in cloud computing: Towards a comprehensive framework

Cloud computing paradigm has recently gained tremendous momentum. It has been found very promising for significant cost reduction and the increased operating efficiencies in computing. However, security and privacy issues pose as the key roadblock to its rapid adoption. In this chapter, the authors present the security and privacy challenges in Cloud computing environments and discuss how they are related to various delivery and deployment models, and are exacerbated by the unique aspects of Clouds. The authors also propose a comprehensive security framework for Cloud computing environments and discuss various approaches to address the challenges, existing solutions and future work needed to provide a trustworthy Cloud computing environment.