PROJECT TITLE:

Cloud-Trust - a Security Assessment Model for Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) Clouds - 2015

ABSTRACT:

The vulnerability of Cloud Computing Systems (CCSs) to Advanced Persistent Threats (APTs) is a vital concern to government and business. We tend to gift a cloud architecture reference model that includes a wide selection of security controls and best practices, and a cloud security assessment model – Cloud-Trust – that estimates high level security metrics to quantify the degree of confidentiality and integrity offered by a CCS or cloud service provider (CSP). Cloud-Trust is employed to assess the security level of four multi-tenant IaaS cloud architectures equipped with various cloud security controls and to show the likelihood of CCS penetration (high price information compromise) is high if a minimal set of security controls are implemented. CCS penetration likelihood drops substantially if a cloud defense in depth security design is adopted that protects virtual machine (VM) pictures at rest, strengthens CSP and cloud tenant system administrator access controls, and which employs other network security controls to reduce cloud network surveillance and discovery of live VMs.