Framework for Cloud Security Initiatives in Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises

Abstract

Security issues in the cloud have been identified as dominant roadblock for many organizations’ decisions to migrate their services to the cloud. However, most of the research does not study the challenges relevant to Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) and how SMEs should react to adopting cloud security practices. This research acknowledges that SMEs’ major priority is cloud security and identifies the existing challenges in cloud security adoption by using the factors of the Technology-organization-Environment (TOE) framework. The findings of this research will identify organizational, technical, and environmental challenges towards adopting cloud security for SMEs. It will also propose a framework that should be used by SMEs to assess security readiness during cloud migration.