A survey of security issues for cloud computing

High quality computing services with reduced cost and improved performance have made cloud computing a popular paradigm. Due to its flexible infrastructure, net centric approach and ease of access, the cloud computing has become prevalent. Its widespread usage is however being diminished by the fact that the cloud computing paradigm is yet unable to address security issues which may in turn aggravate the quality of service as well as the privacy of customers' data. In this paper, we present a survey of security issues in terms of security threats and their remediations. The contribution aims at the analysis and categorization of working mechanisms of the main security issues and the possible solutions that exist in the literature. We perform a parametric comparison of the threats being faced by cloud platforms. Moreover, we compare various intrusion detection and prevention frameworks being used to address security issues. The trusted cloud computing and mechanisms for regulating security compliance among cloud service providers are also analyzed. Since the security mechanisms continue to evolve, we also present the future orientation of cloud security issues and their possible countermeasures. (C) 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.