Security Issues in Multi-Cloud: A Systematic Literature Review

The adoption of multi-cloud strategies has surged across various industries due to its superior flexibility, scalability, and reliability relative to a single-cloud provider. Nonetheless, the intricacy of multi-cloud architectures presents considerable security challenges, encompassing data vulnerabilities, access control issues, and more complicated threat detection. This study aims to systematically review the current literature regarding security concerns in multi-cloud environments. The main objective is to identify critical security issues, implement technical solutions, investigate challenges, and propose recommendations for future research. This study uses a systematic literature review methodology adopting the Kitchenham method, which includes a literature search across leading academic databases including IEEE Xplore, ScienceDirect, ACM, SpringerLink, Emerald Insight, Nature, Taylor & Francis, Scopus, and ProQuest. A formal protocol was followed to conduct an automated search of relevant articles published between 2021 and 2024. The results obtained from 30 studies were selected for further research. This study systematically analyzes relevant literature and identifies the issue trends, solutions, challenges, and recommendations for future research. The findings of this review are expected to provide a strong overall picture for further research in multi-cloud environments.