Securing the Global Cloud: Addressing Data Sovereignty, Cross-Border Compliance, and Emerging Threats in a Decentralized World
Taiwo Justice Olorunlana1*
Abstract
While cloud computing is emerging as the foundation for global digital infrastructure, it poses hitherto unprecedented challenges in cybersecurity, governance, and compliance. As organizations contend with ever more sophisticated cyber threats-revenue being produced as ransomware-as-a-service, API manipulation, insider threats, and cloud misconfigurations-tasked alongside such threats is the ratification of complex laws defining data sovereignty and jurisdictional control. This paper focuses on the global threat landscape unique to clouds, with an emphasis on the increased prevalence of cloud exploitation incidents and the financial impacts of data breaches in these systems. It delves into cross-border data governance issues for instance, the conflict between the U.S. CLOUD Act versus the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and implications from laws like China’s Data Security Law and India`s Digital Personal Data Protection Act. This study discusses these multidimensional risks and examines the use and role of next-generation technologies: ranging from zero trust architecture, AI-based threat detection, encryption, and IAM. This has underlined the need for technological defenses to be connected to reasonable, globally approved rules. The study advises a multi-stakeholder approach emphasizing the integration of new security technologies with a worldwide unified policy framework to advance the development of cloud ecosystems safely and sustainably.
Keywords:
Cloud computing, cybersecurity, data sovereignty, zero trust architecture, encryption, AI security, cross-border compliance, cloud governance, international data regulation
