About this interactive
When you hire out part of your infrastructure, you hire out part of its security too. The shared responsibility model draws the line between your job and the provider's, and it moves with the model you choose.
On-premises, every layer is yours, from the building's power to the apps. In colocation the facility runs the building, its power, cooling and physical security, and the hardware and everything on it stay yours. In IaaS the provider runs everything up to the hypervisor, and you start at the operating system. In PaaS it also runs the operating system and the runtime, and you bring the app and its data. In SaaS it runs the application too.
In every model, your own data, who has an account and how they sign in stay with you. Many cloud incidents start with a job on the customer's side of the line that the customer assumed the provider was doing: a guest operating system nobody patched, a storage bucket left open, an account nobody removed.
To predict who acts, find the layer the event is in, then ask which side of the line that layer sits on in this model.
About TechKnowSurge
TechKnowSurge builds IT and cybersecurity professionals through hands-on, concept-first training built around real understanding — not memorization. Free interactive tools, structured programs, and 25+ years of real-world experience, all in one place.
Explore free tools and programs →