The article examines the main legal approaches to determining the legal essence of cloud computing technologies, analyzes their stable features and advantages, and accumulates risks and threats of application. It is noted that in the Russian Federation, legal support for the sphere of cloud computing technologies is insufficient, including the absence of a definitive apparatus, the relevance of the adoption of a special law on information security, sections of which should be devoted, inter alia, to the legal foundations of cybersecurity when using cloud computing technologies, laying the foundation for an integrated approach to legal security management, has not been removed between different participants of the digital environment. Therefore, the study of the legal nature and features of cloud computing technologies with the allocation of specific characteristics, as well as the identification of threats and risks in the process of using cloud computing technologies seems to be a promising direction for the further development of the mechanism of legal regulation of the digital technology sphere.