Cloud Computing

C loud computing has generated significant interest in both academia and industry, but it’s still an evolving paradigm. Essentially, it aims to consolidate the economic utility model with the evolutionary development of many existing approaches and computing technologies, including distributed services, applications, and in-formation infrastructures consisting of pools of com-puters, networks, and storage resources. Confusion exists in IT communities about how a cloud differs from existing models and how these differences af-fect its adoption. Some see a cloud as a novel technical revolution, while others consider it a natural evolution of technology, economy, and culture.1 Nevertheless, cloud computing is an important paradigm, with the potential to significantly reduce costs through optimization and increased operat-ing and economic efficiencies.1,2 Furthermore, cloud computing could significantly enhance collaboration, agility, and scale, thus enabling a truly global comput-ing model over the Internet infrastructure. However, without appropriate security and privacy solutions designed for clouds, this potentially revolutionizing computing paradigm could become a huge failure. Several surveys of potential cloud adopters indicate that security and privacy is the primary concern hin-dering its adoption.3 This article illustrates the unique issues of cloud computing that exacerbate security and privacy chal-lenges in clouds.4 We also discuss various approaches to address these challenges and explore the future work needed to provide a trustworthy cloud comput-ing environment