There are a few different objections to the overall security of cloud hosting. We examine those below and illustrate how cloud hosting actually overcomes these security hurdles.

1. The Bad Neighbor Effect

2. Overall Loss of Data Control

3. Main Cloud Hosting Security Vulnerabilities

One common security issue revolves around the issue of multi-tenant cloud hosting. This is when multiple different virtual machines are using the same dedicated physical server space. These virtual machine networks are what make up your cloud hosting environment.

The idea is that a single insecure or overloaded site on the network, could compromise the other sites. However, there are numerous enhanced security protocols in place like VM isolation, which completely isolates your virtual network from others on the same machine. This means that your data is safe, protected, and can’t be accessed by anyone except you.

The seeming loss of control over the location of your data seems to be a big objection to cloud hosting. The outsourcing of your information storage to a third-party cloud system can seem a little scary. However, most of today’s cloud hosting providers operate with this understanding and have built their system around providing transparency and security around the user data. This allows you to maintain responsibility over your data, while not having to manage everything yourself.

Just like other forms of hosting there are certain vulnerabilities you’ll need to be aware of. Security is never going to be perfect. When compared to traditional hosting the cloud offers a universal access point, which means that security protocols need to be even stricter. Still, vulnerabilities do exist.

Below you’ll find the main types of security issues that threaten cloud hosting environments. You’ll notice they’re very similar to traditional hosting environments as well:

• DDoS attacks. It’s difficult to stop DDoS attacks, but you can do your best to protect your site with a solution like SiteLock, or other security add-ons.
• Data breaches. Data breaches can occur due to the lack of two-factor authentication. By improving passwords and improving your user authentication process, this can be avoided.
• Malware. Malware scripts can be injected into your cloud hosting and can be quite destructive in regards to sensitive data. However, using software like SiteLock will help protect you against this as well.
• Data loss. Since data is stored across long distances you can run into the risk of a datacenter being taken out, or going offline, due to natural causes. Typically, this risk can be mitigated through regular backups stored in different locations.

Cloud providers provide robust physical and virtual security of servers on their network, protecting website and application data from malicious actors. Cloud hosting security layers include firewalls, identity management and access control, Secure Sockets Layers (SSL) for transmitting data, and more.