Analysis and prevention of vulnerabilities in cloud applications

Cloud computing has emerged as the single most talked about technology of recent times. Its aim, to provide agile information technology solutions and infrastructure is the primary reason for its popularity. It enables the organizations to ensure that their resources are utilized efficiently, development process is enhanced and investments or costs incurred to buy technological resources are reduced. At the same time Cloud computing is being scrutinized in the security world due to the various vulnerabilities and threats that it poses to the user data or resources. This paper highlights the vulnerabilities that exist in applications available on the cloud and aims to make an analysis of different types of security holes found in these applications by using open source vulnerability assessment tools. It identifies the security requirements pertinent to these applications and makes an assessment whether these requirements were met by them by testing two of these applications using the vulnerability tools. It also provides remedial measures for the security holes found in these applications and enables the user to select a secure provider for themselves while at the same time enabling the cloud provider to improve their services and find a competitive edge in the market.