Creative Commons

This dissertation was written as a part of the MSc in ICT Systems at the International Hellenic University. Specifically, this master thesis focuses on describing what cloud computing is and addresses the top security risks and threats while adopting a cloud provider. Besides analyzing in general the security risks and threats, it further examines data security in the cloud during the different stages of the data life cycle and, taking these aspects into consideration, a comparison of different cloud providers is presented. Finally, the last part of the master thesis, describes the development of a wizard that can help a stakeholder to choose a cloud provider based on his needs and the provided security features. I would like to express my gratitude to my supervisor Prof. Vasileios Katos for his useful comments, remarks and help throughout this period. Furthermore, I would like to thank Dr. Efstratios Kontopoulos. Without his supervision and constant help this dissertation would not have been possible. Last but not least, I would like to thank my family for always being on my side.