Assessing future development needs in cloud computing cyber security : a systematic literature review of literature reviews

Abstract

Cloud computing is an innovative technology which presents significant changes to the way organisations and individuals satisfy their computing needs. However, the rapid growth of emerging technologies, including cloud computing, creates significant cybersecurity gaps and issues for service users. These gaps, paired with the increasing popularity of the cloud, warrant the need for further research to be done for improving this technology and ensuring its safety and reliability. This thesis presents a systematic literature review of other literature reviews published on the Google Scholar and Scopus databases, with the aim of outlining the main gaps that require future research on this topic. Furthermore, this study analyses the included literature to assess the extent to which studies address the awareness, or lack thereof, of business organisations and their employees on the importance of cyber security in their uses of cloud computing. Through the inclusion and exclusion criteria set, a total of eleven studies were identified and analysed to the extent of addressing this research’s aims. The results obtained show that there are numerous research gaps of various natures, which require further research. It was also outlined how these research gaps must be addressed for cloud computing to become a safer and more reliable technology for organisations.