

In today’s digital landscape, few businesses can go without relying on cloud computing to build a rock-solid IT infrastructure. Boosted efficiency, reduced expenses, and increased scalability are just some of the reasons behind its increasing popularity.
In case you aren’t familiar with the concept, cloud computing refers to running software and services on the internet using data stored on outside sources. So, instead of owning and maintaining their infrastructure locally and physically, businesses access cloud-based services as needed.
And what is found in the cloud? Well, any crucial business data that you can imagine. Customer information, business applications, data backups, and the list can go on.
Given this data’s sensitivity, cloud computing security is of utmost importance.
Unfortunately, cloud computing isn’t the only aspect that keeps evolving. So do the risks, issues, and challenges threatening its security.
Let’s review the most significant security issues in cloud computing and discuss how to address them adequately.
Understanding Cloud Computing Security Risks
Cloud computing security risks refer to potential vulnerabilities in the system that malicious actors can exploit for their own benefit. Understanding these risks is crucial to selecting the right cloud computing services for your business or deciding if cloud computing is even the way to go.
Data Breaches
A data breach happens when unauthorized individuals access, steal, or publish sensitive information (names, addresses, credit card information). Since these incidents usually occur without the organization’s knowledge, the attackers have ample time to do severe damage.
What do we mean by damage?
Well, in this case, damage can refer to various scenarios. Think everything from using the stolen data for financial fraud to sabotaging the company’s stock price. It all depends on the type of stolen data.
Whatever the case, companies rarely put data breaches behind them without a severely damaged reputation, significant financial loss, or extensive legal consequences.
Data Loss
The business world revolves around data. That’s why attackers target it. And why companies fight so hard to preserve it.
As the name implies, data loss occurs when a company can no longer access its previously stored information.
Sure, malicious attacks are often behind data loss. But this is only one of the causes of this unfortunate event.
The cloud service provider can also accidentally delete your vital data. Physical catastrophes (fires, floods, earthquakes, tornados, explosions) can also have this effect, as can data corruption, software failure, and many other mishaps.
Account Hijacking
Using (or reusing) weak passwords as part of cloud-based infrastructure is basically an open invitation for account hijacking.
Again, the name is pretty self-explanatory – a malicious actor gains complete control over your online accounts. From there, the hijacker can access sensitive data, perform unauthorized actions, and compromise other associated accounts.
Insecure APIs
In cloud computing, communication service providers (CSPs) offer their customers numerous Application Programming Interfaces (APIs). These easy-to-use interfaces allow customers to manage their cloud-based services. But besides being easy to use, some of these APIs can be equally easy to exploit. For this reason, cybercriminals often prey on insecure APIs as their access points for infiltrating the company’s cloud environment.
Denial of Service (DoS) Attacks
Denial of service (DoS) attacks have one goal – to render your network or server inaccessible. They do so by overwhelming them with traffic until they malfunction or crash.
It’s clear that these attacks can cause severe damage to any business. Now imagine what they can do to companies that rely on those online resources to store business-critical data.
Insider Threats
Not all employees will have your company’s best interest at heart, not to mention ex-employees. If these individuals abuse their authorized access, they can wreak havoc on your networks, systems, and data.
Insider threats are more challenging to spot than external attacks. After all, these individuals know your business inside out, positioning them to cause serious damage while staying undetected.
Advanced Persistent Threats (APTs)
With advanced persistent threats (APTs), it’s all about the long game. The intruder will infiltrate your company’s cloud environment and fly under the radar for quite some time. Of course, they’ll use this time to steal sensitive data from your business’s every corner.
Challenges in Cloud Computing Security
Security challenges in cloud computing refer to hurdles your company might hit while implementing cloud computing security.
Shared Responsibility Model
A shared responsibility model is precisely what it sounds like. The responsibility for maintaining security falls on several individuals or entities. In cloud computing, these parties include the CSP and your business (as the CSP’s consumer). Even the slightest misunderstanding concerning the division of these responsibilities can have catastrophic consequences for cloud computing security.
Compliance With Regulations and Standards
Organizations must store their sensitive data according to specific regulations and standards. Some are industry-specific, like HIPAA (Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act) for guarding healthcare records. Others, like GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation), are more extensive. Achieving this compliance in cloud computing is more challenging since organizations typically don’t control all the layers of their infrastructure.
Data Privacy and Protection
Placing sensitive data in the cloud comes with significant exposure risks (as numerous data breaches in massive companies have demonstrated). Keeping this data private and protected is one of the biggest security challenges in cloud computing.
Lack of Visibility and Control
Once companies move their data to the cloud (located outside their corporate network), they lose some control over it. The same goes for their visibility into their network’s operations. Naturally, since companies can’t fully see or control their cloud-based resources, they sometimes fail to protect them successfully against attacks.
Vendor Lock-In and Interoperability
These security challenges in cloud computing arise when organizations want to move their assets from one CSP to another. This move is often deemed too expensive or complex, forcing the organization to stay put (vendor lock-in). Migrating data between providers can also cause different applications and systems to stop working together correctly, thus hindering their interoperability.
Security of Third-Party Services
Third-party services are often trouble, and cloud computing is no different. These services might have security vulnerabilities allowing unauthorized access to your cloud data and systems.
Issues in Cloud Computing Security
The following factors have proven as major security issues in cloud computing.
Insufficient Identity and Access Management
The larger your business, the harder it gets to establish clearly-defined roles and assign them specific permissions. However, Identity and Access Management (IAM) is vital in cloud computing. Without a comprehensive IAM strategy, a data breach is just waiting to happen.
Inadequate Encryption and Key Management
Encryption is undoubtedly one of the most effective measures for data protection. But only if it’s implemented properly. Using weak keys or failing to rotate, store, and protect them adequately is a one-way ticket to system vulnerabilities.
So, without solid encryption and coherent key management strategies, your cloud computing security can be compromised in no time.
Vulnerabilities in Virtualization Technology
Virtualization (running multiple virtual computers on the hardware elements of a single physical computer) is becoming increasingly popular. Consider the level of flexibility it allows (and at what cost!), and you’ll understand why.
However, like any other technology, virtualization is prone to vulnerabilities. And, as we’ve already established, system vulnerabilities and cloud computing security can’t go hand in hand.
Limited Incident Response Capabilities
Promptly responding to a cloud computing security incident is crucial to minimizing its potential impact on your business. Without a proper incident report strategy, attackers can run rampant within your cloud environment.
Security Concerns in Multi-Tenancy Environments
In a multi-tenancy environment, multiple accounts share the same cloud infrastructure. This means that an attack on one of those accounts (or tenants) can compromise the cloud computing security for all the rest. Keep in mind that this only applies if the CSP doesn’t properly separate the tenants.
Addressing Key Concerns in Cloud Computing Security
Before moving your data to cloud-based services, you must fully comprehend all the security threats that might await. This way, you can implement targeted cloud computing security measures and increase your chances of emerging victorious from a cyberattack.
Here’s how you can address some of the most significant cloud computing security concerns:
- Implement strong authentication and access controls (introducing multifactor authentication, establishing resource access policies, monitoring user access rights).
- Ensure data encryption and secure key management (using strong keys, rotating them regularly, and protecting them beyond CSP’s measures).
- Regularly monitor and audit your cloud environments (combining CSP-provided monitoring information with your cloud-based and on-premises monitoring information for maximum security).
- Develop a comprehensive incident response plan (relying on the NIST [National Institute of Standards and Technology] or the SANS [SysAdmin, Audit, Network, and Security] framework).
- Collaborate with cloud service providers to successfully share security responsibilities (coordinating responses to threats and investigating potential threats).
Weathering the Storm in Cloud Computing
Due to the importance of the data they store, cloud-based systems are constantly exposed to security threats. Compare the sheer number of security risks to the number of challenges and issues in addressing them promptly, and you’ll understand why cloud computing security sometimes feels like an uphill battle.
Since these security threats are ever-evolving, staying vigilant, informed, and proactive is the only way to stay on top of your cloud computing security. Pursue education in this field, and you can achieve just that.
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During the Open Institute of Technology’s (OPIT’s) 2025 Graduation Day, we conducted interviews with many recent graduates to understand why they chose OPIT, how they felt about the course, and what advice they might give to others considering studying at OPIT.
Karina is an experienced FinTech professional who is an experienced integration manager, ERP specialist, and business analyst. She was interested in learning AI applications to expand her career possibilities, and she chose OPIT’s MSc in Applied Data Science & AI.
In the interview, Karina discussed why she chose OPIT over other courses of study, the main challenges she faced when completing the course while working full-time, and the kind of support she received from OPIT and other students.
Why Study at OPIT?
Karina explained that she was interested in enhancing her AI skills to take advantage of a major emerging technology in the FinTech field. She said that she was looking for a course that was affordable and that she could manage alongside her current demanding job. Karina noted that she did not have the luxury to take time off to become a full-time student.
She was principally looking at courses in the United States and the United Kingdom. She found that comprehensive courses were expensive, costing upwards of $50,000, and did not always offer flexible study options. Meanwhile, flexible courses that she could complete while working offered excellent individual modules, but didn’t always add up to a coherent whole. This was something that set OPIT apart.
Karina admits that she was initially skeptical when she encountered OPIT because, at the time, it was still very new. OPIT only started offering courses in September 2023, so 2025 was the first cohort of graduates.
Nevertheless, Karina was interested in OPIT’s affordable study options and the flexibility of fully remote learning and part-time options. She said that when she looked into the course, she realized that it aligned very closely with what she was looking for.
In particular, Karina noted that she was always wary of further study because of the level of mathematics required in most computer science courses. She appreciated that OPIT’s course focused on understanding the underlying core principles and the potential applications, rather than the fine programming and mathematical details. This made the course more applicable to her professional life.
OPIT’s MSc in Applied Data Science & AI
The course Karina took was OPIT’s MSc in Applied Data Science & AI. It is a three- to four-term course (13 weeks), which can take between one and two years to complete, depending on the pace you choose and whether you choose the 90 or 120 ECTS option. As well as part-time, there are also regular and fast-track options.
The course is fully online and completed in English, with an accessible tuition fee of €2,250 per term, which is €6,750 for the 90 ECTS course and €9,000 for the 120 ECTS course. Payment plans are available as are scholarships, and discounts are available if you pay the full amount upfront.
It matches foundational tech modules with business application modules to build a strong foundation. It then ends with a term-long research project culminating in a thesis. Internships with industry partners are encouraged and facilitated by OPIT, or professionals can work on projects within their own companies.
Entry requirements include a bachelor’s degree or equivalency in any field, including non-tech fields, and English proficiency to a B2 level.
Faculty members include Pierluigi Casale, a former Data Science and AI Innovation Officer for the European Parliament and Principal Data Scientist at TomTom; Paco Awissi, former VP at PSL Group and an instructor at McGill University; and Marzi Bakhshandeh, a Senior Product Manager at ING.
Challenges and Support
Karina shared that her biggest challenge while studying at OPIT was time management and juggling the heavy learning schedule with her hectic job. She admitted that when balancing the two, there were times when her social life suffered, but it was doable. The key to her success was organization, time management, and the support of the rest of the cohort.
According to Karina, the cohort WhatsApp group was often a lifeline that helped keep her focused and optimistic during challenging times. Sharing challenges with others in the same boat and seeing the example of her peers often helped.
The OPIT Cohort
OPIT has a wide and varied cohort with over 300 students studying remotely from 78 countries around the world. Around 80% of OPIT’s students are already working professionals who are currently employed at top companies in a variety of industries. This includes global tech firms such as Accenture, Cisco, and Broadcom, FinTech companies like UBS, PwC, Deloitte, and the First Bank of Nigeria, and innovative startups and enterprises like Dynatrace, Leonardo, and the Pharo Foundation.
Study Methods
This cohort meets in OPIT’s online classrooms, powered by the Canvas Learning Management System (LMS). One of the world’s leading teaching and learning software, it acts as a virtual hub for all of OPIT’s academic activities, including live lectures and discussion boards. OPIT also uses the same portal to conduct continuous assessments and prepare students before final exams.
If you want to collaborate with other students, there is a collaboration tab where you can set up workrooms, and also an official Slack platform. Students tend to use WhatsApp for other informal communications.
If students need additional support, they can book an appointment with the course coordinator through Canvas to get advice on managing their workload and balancing their commitments. Students also get access to experienced career advisor Mike McCulloch, who can provide expert guidance.
A Supportive Environment
These services and resources create a supportive environment for OPIT students, which Karina says helped her throughout her course of study. Karina suggests organization and leaning into help from the community are the best ways to succeed when studying with OPIT.

In April 2025, Professor Francesco Derchi from the Open Institute of Technology (OPIT) and Chair of OPIT’s Digital Business programs entered the online classroom to talk about the current state of the Metaverse and what companies can do to engage with this technological shift. As an expert in digital marketing, he is well-placed to talk about how brands can leverage the Metaverse to further company goals.
Current State of the Metaverse
Francesco started by exploring what the Metaverse is and the rocky history of its development. Although many associate the term Metaverse with Mark Zuckerberg’s 2021 announcement of Meta’s pivot toward a virtual immersive experience co-created by users, the concept actually existed long before. In his 1992 novel Snow Crash, author Neal Stephenson described a very similar concept, with people using avatars to seamlessly step out of the real world and into a highly connected virtual world.
Zuckerberg’s announcement was not even the start of real Metaverse-like experiences. Released in 2003, Second Life is a virtual world in which multiple users come together and engage through avatars. Participation in Second Life peaked at about one million active users in 2007. Similarly, Minecraft, released in 2011, is a virtual world where users can explore and build, and it offers multiplayer options.
What set Zuckerberg’s vision apart from these earlier iterations is that he imagined a much broader virtual world, with almost limitless creation and interaction possibilities. However, this proved much more difficult in practice.
Both Meta and Microsoft started investing significantly in the Metaverse at around the same time, with Microsoft completing its acquisition of Activision Blizzard – a gaming company that creates virtual world games such as World of Warcraft – in 2023 and working with Epic Games to bring Fortnite to their Xbox cloud gaming platform.
But limited adoption of new Metaverse technology saw both Meta and Microsoft announce major layoffs and cutbacks on their Metaverse investments.
Open Garden Metaverse
One of the major issues for the big Metaverse vision is that it requires an open-garden Metaverse. Matthew Ball defined this kind of Metaverse in his 2022 book:
“A massively scaled and interoperable network of real-time rendered 3D virtual worlds that can be experienced synchronously and persistently by an effectively unlimited number of users with an individual sense of presence, and with continuity of data, such as identity, history, entitlements, objects, communication, and payments.”
This vision requires an open Metaverse, a virtual world beyond any single company’s walled garden that allows interaction across platforms. With the current technology and state of the market, this is believed to be at least 10 years away.
With that in mind, Zuckerberg and Meta have pivoted away from expanding their Metaverse towards delivering devices such as AI glasses with augmented reality capabilities and virtual reality headsets.
Nevertheless, the Metaverse is still expanding today, but within walled garden contexts. Francesco pointed to Pokémon Go and Roblox as examples of Metaverse-esque words with enormous engagement and popularity.
Brands Engaging with the Metaverse: Nike Case Study
What does that mean for brands? Should they ignore the Metaverse until it becomes a more realistic proposition, or should they be establishing their Meta presence now?
Francesco used Nike’s successful approach to Meta engagement to show how brands can leverage the Metaverse today.
He pointed out that this was a strategic move from Nike to protect their brand. As a cultural phenomenon, people will naturally bring their affinity with Nike into the virtual space with them. If Nike doesn’t constantly monitor that presence, they can lose control of it. Rather than see this as a threat, Nike identified it as an opportunity. As people engage more online, their virtual appearance can become even more important than their physical appearance. Therefore, there is a space for Nike to occupy in this virtual world as a cultural icon.
Nike chose an ad hoc approach, going to users where they are and providing experiences within popular existing platforms.
As more than 1.5 million people play Fortnite every day, Nike started there, first selling a variety of virtual shoes that users can buy to kit out their avatars.
Roblox similarly has around 380 million monthly active users, so Nike entered the space and created NIKELAND, a purpose-built virtual area that offers a unique brand experience in the virtual world. For example, during NBA All-Star Week, LeBron James visited NIKELAND, where he coached and engaged with players. During the FIFA World Cup, NIKELAND let users claim two free soccer jerseys to show support for their favorite teams. According to statistics published at the end of 2023, in less than two years, NIKELAND had more than 34.9 million visitors, with over 13.4 billion hours of engagement and $185 million in NFT (non-fungible tokens or unique digital assets) sales.
Final Thoughts
Francesco concluded by discussing that while Nike has been successful in the Metaverse, this is not necessarily a success that will be simple for smaller brands to replicate. Nike was successful in the virtual world because they are a cultural phenomenon, and the Metaverse is a combination of technology and culture.
Therefore, brands today must decide how to engage with the current state of the Metaverse and prepare for its potential future expansion. Because existing Metaverses are walled gardens, brands also need to decide which Metaverses warrant investment or whether it is worth creating their own dedicated platforms. This all comes down to an appetite for risk.
Facing these types of challenges comes down to understanding the business potential of new technologies and making decisions based on risk and opportunity. OPIT’s BSc in Digital Business and MSc in Digital Business and Innovation help develop these skills, with Francesco also serving as program chair.
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