Many IT professionals would agree that cloud computing is the most revolutionary information delivery model since the introduction of the Internet. For corporate management and decision makers, cloud computing brings many financial and functional benefits as well as serious security concerns that may threaten business continuity and corporate reputation. The definition of cloud computing is still blurry in a large part, because of the magnitude of the security risks and the virtually unlimited amount of information being published. The purpose of this research is to assess how cloud security risks and threats most commonly discussed today are affecting current and prospective cloud users' decisions on adoption. In this research, both practitioner and academic literature was reviewed in order to incorporate views from both sides on cloud security, as well as technology white papers, government reports, and recent market and security articles. Then an online survey targeting current and prospective cloud users was conducted, and real-life driving and resisting forces of cloud adoption were assessed. The survey posed questions about a variety of security risks, and even though the respondents indicated concerns about these risks, none of them were voted as a "show stopper" in cloud adoption. Furthermore, the majority of respondents were confident with their cloud service providers' protection mechanism, while being well aware of the existence of the risk
