ECS

A survey on security issues in service delivery models on cloud computing

– SAAS

- reduced investment in infrastructure: focus on providing a service

- data is stored in the provider's data center; might be replicated in several countries
- key security elements in the SaaS application development and deployment process:
- data security, backup, availability
- network security
- data locality, data integrity, data segregation, data access, confidentiality
- web application security
- data breaches
- virtualisation vulnerability
- authorization and authentication, identity management, sign-on process

- Data security: data resides outside the enterprise boundary. Need to encrypt and limit
access.
- Network security: data flow needs to be secure
- Data locality: sometimes data cannot leave the country; jurisdiction disputes
- Data integrity: database constrains and transactions / atomicity, consistency, isolation,
durability
- Data segregation: because of multi-tenancy
- Data access: the service must be able to incorporate specific policies put forward by the
customer organisation.
- Authentication & authorisation: managing user access
- Data confidentiality: depends on the ToU; may depend on location; may have more than
one legal location with different consequences; difficult to assess (grasp)
- Web application security: must be manager over the web: application level measures are
needed; vulnerability to SQL attacks;
- Data breaches: insiders
- Vulnerability in virtualisation: guest environment ↔ host system
- Availability: resilience to attacks
- Backup:
- Identity MGMT – IdM; Independent IdM stack: everything is stored by SaaS; Credential
synchronisation (replication); Federated IdM

- PAAS

- any security below the application level depends on the provider

- data needs to be inaccessible between applications
- more flexibility to layer on additional security

- IAAS

- better control over security unless there are virtualisation issues;

- the security responsibilities differ between different cloud service models
- high risks because of the value & vulnerabilities
 Impact of deployment model:

1. Who manages the infrastructure?

2. Who owns the infrastructure?
3. Where is the infrastructure located?
4. What are the access & consumption permissions?

Public;
Private / community;
Hybrid

Current security solutions:

– CSA: Cloud Security Alliance, collects and coordinates info on standards

- OWASP: Open Web Application Security Project, maintains list of top vulnerabilities
- The Open Grid Forum: publishes documents containing infrastructural and security
specifications

- Best solution: develop a framework that has a resilient security architecture

- Hayes (2008): using third-service providers raises weird questions about ownership
and control

Conclusion

- Main issues:
1) power efficiency
2) privacy & security
3) SLA (service-level agreements)

- Ideas: store data in multiple locations and user meta-data to recover it

- You can also shut down unused services
- Cache isolation
- Different security measures for different customers, also some variation between security
measures to make it less predictable and vulnerable to a single attack

LECTURE

- Edison Electric Light Station

- COMPAQ

- Characteristics of cloud computing: on-demand services, standardised access, resource pooling,

rapid elasticity, measured service; renting resources

- Cloud deployment:

1. Private
2. Community
3. Public
4. Hybrid
 – Determined by: provider and location (where does the date reside?); controller of the
virtualisation software that generates and manages the virtual machines; config, support, and
maintenance of the infrastructure, effectively who is responsible when something goes
wrong.

– PRIVATE

1. infrastructure is for the exclusive use of an enterprise and its business units
2. may be managed internally or an third-party organisation
3. could be a mixture
4. infrastructure could be located on or off premises

– COMMUNITY

1. exclusive use of a community / organisations with a shared concerns, e.g., dentists or

lawyers
2. could be shared legal considerations, policy compliance considerations, specific security
requirements
3. managed by one or more members of the community or by an external party.
4. located on or off premises

– PUBLIC

1. infra- provided by the provider, open to the public to use

2. provider: enterprise, gov, research org, a mixture
3. infrastructure exists on the premises of the managing org-
4. config & support are handled by the infra- provider

– HYBRID

- IAAS

- fundamental service model

- enterprises are provided basic computing elements: processing, storage, network infrastructure etc
- virtual machines

- PAAS

- applications are deployed & built atop the infra-

- languages, libraries, services, tools

- SAAS

- access to applications & services

- accessible from thin-clients (as well as more complex)

- Provider responsible for two bottom levels of security: data storage security and data
transmission security. The customer is responsible for application security and issues related to third
party resources

- Key points:
- hard to know where the data is bouncing around.
- low control
- legal & compliance issues across different countries