Cybersecurity Challenges and Implications for the Adoption of Cloud Computing and IoT: DDoS Attacks as an Example

Cloud computing and Internet of Things have expanded rapidly and dramatically all over the world. Cloud computing has emerged as a new paradigm for enabling broad access to distributed shared IT resources. Although, sharing IT resources is an essential cloud computing characteristic, it has brought many security challenges for both users and service providers. Security is one of the main issues why many users and enterprises are reluctant to migrate to cloud computing. Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks are one of such critical threats which are growing in the cloud space. In this paper, we present a comprehensive study of potential cloud computing security threats caused by DDoS attacks. Additionally, we discuss DDoS risks to cloud computing caused by Internet of Things devices, highlight the reasons behind these threats and analyse why this is overlooked by common security standards and frameworks. We also review cloud architectures and introduce a number of scenarios to enable researchers to better understand and mitigate DDoS attacks on enterprises. Finally, some further research directions addressing current security issues in cloud computing are outlined.