Cloud security Deep Dive 2011

SPECIAL REPORT

AUGUST 2011

Cloud
Security
Deep
Dive

A new security model
for a new era
Copyright © 2011 InfoWorld Media Group. All rights reserved.

i Cloud Security Deep Dive 2

Reinventing security for the cloud
Cloud computing is a fundamentally new paradigm that challenges
traditional security, demanding a new set of security best practices

i By Roger A. Grimes software locally. Typically, SaaS offerings are
multitenanted: Customers establish accounts on
SECURITY CONCERNS are among the leading barriers one huge instance of the software running on
to cloud adoption, and rightly so. While security assump- a virtualized infrastructure. Common examples
tions and approaches remained largely intact through include Google’s Gmail, Microsoft’s Business
other computing revolutions – mainframe to client-server, Online Productivity Suite, and Salesforce.com.
client-server to Web – this time it really is different. • Platform as a Service (PaaS). PaaS providers
In the past, we knew where the application was give developers complete development environ-
running and we knew where our data was stored. We ments in which to code, host, and deliver appli-
knew how both were protected. We knew who we cations. The development environment typically
were sharing the system with, and we knew how dif- includes the underlying infrastructure, devel-
ferent users and groups were being isolated. Cloud opment tools, APIs, and other related services.
computing changes all of that. Examples include Google’s App Engine, Micro-
Cloud computing introduces new kinds of risks, and soft’s Windows Azure, and Salesforce’s Force.com.
it requires a new security model. This paper will discuss
the nature of those risks, their impact on cloud security Naturally, many cloud service providers mix two or
requirements, and the standards and best practices that more of these cloud service models or cannot be neatly
are emerging to address those requirements. placed into one type. Additionally, the type of user
who can access the cloud further defines each model,
CLOUD COMPUTING MODELS as well as what type of cloud is at issue:
Before delving into cloud computing exploits and
defenses, it helps to get a basic understanding of cloud • The public cloud. Public clouds are created
computing models. Although new models appear to by one vendor and offered to the general pub-
be emerging every day, here are the basic ones nearly lic. Public clouds are almost always Internet-
everyone agrees on: accessible and multitenanted.
• The private cloud. Private clouds are hosted
• Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS). IaaS by the same organization that utilizes the ser-
provides massively scalable, elastic computing vice (which in general does not support mult-
resources via the Internet. Some providers offer itenancy). The primary value proposition is data
just a single resource, such as storage space, but accessibility and fault tolerance.
most now focus on providing complete computing • The hybrid cloud. This term typically applies
platforms for customers’ VMs, including operating to organizations that have set up private cloud
system, memory, storage, and processing power. services in combination with external public
Clients often pay for only what they use, which cloud services. It also refers to service offerings
fits nicely into any company’s computing budget. used exclusively by an invited group of private
• Software as a Service (SaaS). SaaS provid- customers (also called a “community cloud”).
ers deliver software functionality through the
browser, without the end-user having to install For more information, see the National Institute for

INFOWORLD.COM DEEP DIVE SERIES A U G U S T 2 011


Standards and Technology (NIST) document detailing Just as most clouds are Internet-accessible, they are
common cloud terminology. also almost entirely Web-based, with browsers as clients
and Web servers as the server endpoint connection.
HOW CLOUD COMPUTING IS DIFFERENT Some clouds use simple HTML-based forms and Web
Cloud computing is a major departure from traditional pages, but most are an increasingly complex set of Web
networks and applications. In general, a service or offer- services and protocols. (Wikipedia has an excellent
ing is considered cloud computing if it has at least four beginner’s tutorial on Web services.)
of these seven traits: As the Web matures, most things that were once
accomplished using a single computer will be executed
• Internet (or intranet) accessible by a matrix of Web services, connected together in
• A massively scalable, user-configurable pool of most cases by XML, SOAP (or REST), and SAML. As
elastic computing resources (such as network Web 2.0 takes over, future security defenders must get
bandwidth, compute power, memory, etc.) to know these services and protocols inside and out,
• Multitenancy (one large software instance and defend against their deficiencies as they emerge
shared by many customer accounts) (and there are bound to be plenty).
• A broad authentication scheme
• Subscription or usage-based payment MULTITENANCY
• Self-service Multitenancy is a major defining trait for public clouds.
• Lack of location specificity Typically, in a traditional environment, only the appli-
cation’s owner and direct employees can access the
All of these traits offer new challenges to the com- application data. In a cloud, multitenancy means that
puter security professional, but accessibility, mult- multiple, distinct, separate end-user parties share the
itenancy, broad authentication, and lack of location same service and/or resources. End-users may be aware
specificity are the four items responsible for the biggest of this fact and may even be able to directly interact
technology shift and demand for new security solutions. with other end-users. Or they may be unaware that
resources are shared and that this is a risk.
ACCESS TO THE INTERNET OR In a cloud, risk looms that the parties sharing that
INTRANETS EQUALS HIGH RISK cloud will be able to — unintentionally or intentionally
We already know that any computing resource that is — access one another’s private data. This has been the
Internet accessible is at a higher risk than one that is case in cloud exploits with major cloud providers during
not. It’s how most of the bad guys break into comput- the past few years. In some cases, all it took was modify-
ers today, whether it involves social-engineered Trojan ing a client’s unique identifier, sent over in the browser
horse programs, viruses, or human attackers. High-risk request, to another identifier, and up comes another cli-
environments, like the top secret classified systems of ent’s data. Sometimes spillage has occurred when a bug
most governments, usually aren’t allowed to connect to a in the cloud service offered up too much data without
network that can connect to the Internet. Too much risk. the client doing anything out of the ordinary.
Clouds don’t use VPN technologies. With cloud With IaaS-based clouds in particular, security research-
computing, it’s assumed that all users and application ers are discovering a brand new class of vulnerabilities
resources are Internet- or intranet-accessible, with all that did not exist in the old world. For example, attackers
the elevated risk that implies. This means that anony- are finding ways to “cyberjack” another tenant’s data and
mous attackers can access connection points just as any resources by discovering other tenant’s IP addresses and
legitimate user or manager of the system can. In a tradi- computer resources or by searching for other people’s data
tional computing environment, only a small percentage remnants after they release unneeded resources back to
of servers are Internet-accessible. In cloud computing, the cloud. As it turns out, some cloud vendors don’t erase
most servers are Internet-accessible. This must change or format the freed-up storage or memory resources.
the security defender’s thinking. It’s too early to know whether these types of risks



will decrease as cloud security matures or whether they services include OpenID, InfoCard, and LiveID. Many
will remain a fixture that defines the new threat model. of these authentication services are interoperable with
each other and use common protocols such as XML,
BROAD AUTHENTICATION SCHEMES SOAP, SAML, Web services, WS-Federation, and so on.
Internet accessibility and multitenancy pose a chal- In the Web 2.0 world, each Web site (or cloud pro-
lenge when determining how to authenticate large vider) can choose which federated identity service to
numbers of different clients. In the traditional model, work with and accept. The Web site or service provider
each authenticating user has a full user account located can require particular types of identity assurance (such
in the application’s authentication database (or direc- as a simple password, smartcard, or biometric device)
tory service). But scaling and multitenancy complicates before a user can participate. For example, a cancer
the process, because conventional authentication ser- survivor Web site may wish to allow anonymous users
vices tend to offer access to shared common resources whereas an online banking Web site may require a site-
by default. In Active Directory, for example, mem- issued smartcard or other authenticating token to log on.
bers of the Everyone group can see and list all sorts of Conversely, users may be able to submit only the
resources that a cloud provider would probably not identity data they wish to share with the participat-
want every client to see. ing service provider (called claims-based identity). For
Initially, many cloud providers tried to solve this example, a user purchasing alcohol via the Internet may
problem by using proprietary or private authentication need only to prove that he or she are over the legal
services. But these services rarely have the scalabil- drinking age but not have to show his or her actual
ity and functionality needed. First-generation clouds identity or birthdate. A central tenet of any good iden-
required that all end-users have separate accounts in tity metasystem is that users should only have to show
their databases — similar to the way Web surfers need the bare minimum of identity information necessary
to log on separately to each website where they have to access the offered service and perform the desired
an account. (For example, your Facebook account is transaction. Submitting (or requesting) too much iden-
not related to your Amazon or iTunes accounts). This is tity information is considered very “Web 1.0.”
known as “Web Identity 1.0” in identity system circles. In the Identity 2.0 model, authenticated anonymity
Clearly, asking end-users to create and manage sepa- (called pseudo-anonymity) is possible. In this case, a
rate log-on accounts for every future Web service they trusted third party knows the user’s real identity and
will use doesn’t scale — for a multitude of reasons. Using has authenticated him or her, but hands out a different
one big SSO (single sign-on) solution that interacted with identity credential that is trusted by the Web service
participating Web sites became the “Web Identity 1.5” provider. Thus, that user can use the Web service with-
way of doing things. With this authentication model, out revealing his or her true identity to the Web site.
users registered with an “independent,” centralized
authority to obtain an SSO ID. Then, when visiting par- THE EFFECT OF BROAD AUTHENTICATION
ticipating Web sites, the user could enter their SSO cre- ON CLOUD COMPUTING
dentials to gain access. An example of this sort of solution In the near future, it’s likely that both private and public
was Microsoft’s Passport (now morphed into LiveID) and clouds will support Web 2.0 identities. Users of private
other protocols created by the Liberty Alliance. clouds will likely use their SSO to access public cloud
But many people balked at the idea of a single entity services, while external users may use their SSO to
handling everyone’s SSO accounts. What evolved is access your company’s private or hybrid cloud offering.
known as “Web Identity 2.0,” or federated identity, as The security impact of this is that a cloud attacker
well as identity metasystems. With Web Identity 2.0, is likely to be an authenticated user within the cloud
there can be a multitude of identity services (made system at the onset of an attack. By contrast, the old
up of both centrally managed and single, stand-alone assumption is that the attacker didn’t start with authen-
identities) that can interoperate with a large number ticated access and needed to gain original access to
of Web sites and services. Popular individual identity begin high-level system exploitation.


For example, consider two of the earliest and largest exploitation of application vulnerabilities, session contami-
cloud services: Google Gmail and Microsoft Hotmail nation, network attacks, man-in-the-middle attacks, social
(now called LiveMail). Both contain millions of authen- engineering, and so on. But the unique characteristics of
ticated users and both now support newer SSO forms cloud computing present a new set of challenges as well.
such as OpenID and InfoCard. Google and Microsoft Start by assuming attackers are logged-in, authenti-
have no idea which users are legitimate and which cated users, and begin your defenses from there — and
intend to do harm to other users or to the service itself. there may be many attackers, thanks to the cloud’s
Identity is still a work in progress. Solutions will change global reach. This level of attacker access means that
and morph as people begin to adopt the cloud in great many conventional defenses (such as separated security
numbers. And as new needs emerge, new solutions and pro- zones, firewalls, and so on) will have little relevance.
tocols will need to be invented. Whatever trajectory these
future developments take, Identity 2.0 is new paradigm that CLOUD SECURITY DEFENSE CLASSIFICATIONS
requires a huge mind shift in computer security defenders. Managing cloud security is different than maintain-
ing ordinary enterprise security. Security professionals
LACK OF LOCATION SPECIFICITY should analyze all cloud offerings (including their own)
The term “cloud” implies that a service is available widely, within a holistic security framework to make sure all
if not globally, with a multitude of origination and des- angles are covered.
tination points. The specific location of the computing Keep in mind that each combination of cloud ser-
resources for a given cloud may not be immediately iden- vices has its own unique set of risks and countermea-
tifiable by either the client, the cloud vendor, or both. In sures. Table 1 organizes these variables into a set of
a traditional network offering, the user or vendor often is classifications and subtopics intended to generate fur-
aware of where the application or data is being hosted. ther discussion and analysis.
This brings up all sorts of interesting dilemmas. For
example: How are security defenders supposed to CLOUD DEFENSE BEST PRACTICES
protect data when they don’t even know where it is? Enterprise security is a vast discipline and each of
How can a cloud provider identify a client’s data (for its many aspects must be reexamined in light of the
legal and other purposes)? How does the cloud pro- cloud. Take user deprovisioning as an example. Nor-
vider securely erase a client’s data if the client exits the mally, when an employee leaves a company, access to
cloud solution? How can a particular client’s data be company applications and data is removed. But if that
prevented from leaving the host country of origin, if employee has subscribed to cloud services on behalf of
even the cloud operators don’t know where the data is? the company, from the beginning the company should
have had the technology in place to track those sub-
THE ROLE OF VIRTUALIZATION scriptions, or the former employee may still be able
Virtualization tends to play a big role in cloud services, access company data. You can’t deprovision if you don’t
either as the underpinning for the service or, in the case know what was provisioned in the first place.
of IaaS, as part of the cloud service offering itself. And
virtualization has every security risk that a physical com- CLOUD AUDITS
puter environment has — plus guest-to-host and guest-to- For many cloud users, these questions can be answered
guest vulnerabilities. Clearly, cloud computing amounts to only by asking the vendor and by verifying the controls.
more than just semantic games. It presents a unique set of Many cloud providers have conducted third-party audits
challenges that security defenders must rise up to meet. on themselves and will release the results to interested
customers. Today, the Statement on Auditing Standards
CLOUD SECURITY DEFENSES (SAS) 70 Type II audit is the most common cloud audit
Cloud security is an evolving field. To begin with, cloud you’ll find in the U.S. There are many others, and no
solutions are subject to all the conventional attacks single cloud auditing standard is accepted globally. If
— buffer overflows, password attacks, physical attacks, the cloud vendor cannot provide an acceptable auditing


TABLE 1: CLOUD SECURITY CLASSIFICATIONS AND SUBTOPICS
A security defender responsible for cloud security should consider a wide range of parameters when developing
a cloud security defense plan.

SECURITY CLASSIFICATION RELATED SUBTOPICS
Infrastructure security Physical security, environmental controls, business continuity/disaster recovery,
network infrastructure, firewalls, proxies, routers, access control lists, staffing/employee
background checks, availability (performance and anti-DoS), security policies (including
what can be made available to customers), remote access, mobile access and platforms,
identity/authentication/federation, billing systems, virtualization issues, high availability

Resource provisioning Provisioning; modification; ownership and control, access; deprovisioning; reuse/
reassignment of: users, computing resources, computer systems, or IP address space;
domain name services; directory services; self-service configuration management
Storage and data security Privacy/privacy controls, data tagging, data storage zoning, data retention policies,
data permanence/deletion, encryption (at-rest, in-transit, key management, Federal
Information Processing Standards/Federal Information Security Management Act),
digital signing/integrity attestation, multitenancy issues, archiving, backup, recovery, data
classification, locality requirements, malicious data aggregation prevention

Application security Security design lifecycle, identity/authentication/federation, session management, data input
(if applicable) validation, error handling, vulnerability testing, patching, authentication, data integration/
exchange, APIs, proxies, application sandboxing, versioning, bug/issue tracking

Audit/compliance Logging, monitoring, auditing, compliance, accreditation, legal issues, regulations, locality
requirements, discovery, forensics, SLAs, public communication plans, fraud detection

General security Anti-malware, anti-spam, patching, incident response, data leak prevention

report, ask if the cloud provider is willing to conduct wanted to admit. The cloud, with authenticated attack-
routine audits using an industry-accepted format (such ers, just puts the nail in the coffin.
as CloudAudit, CloudTrust, ISACA’s Cloud Computing What is a security defender to do? Well, for one,
Management Audit/Assurance Program). Cloud ven- think in terms of data classification and ownership and
dors are still waiting for something as widely respected marry that with strong security domain isolation. Cloud
as the standard corporate financial audit, but this is providers should have ways for defenders to mark or
quickly starting to change (see the Cloud Security Alli- tag data with ownership and security classification and
ance section below). to enable defenses based upon those attributes. Data
should be protected in such a way that unauthorized
SAY GOODBYE TO THE DMZ (but authenticated, multitenanted) viewers can be pre-
One of the major changes from traditional computing vented from seeing another’s data. If a client needs
is the pervasiveness of the cloud. By its very defini- to prevent its data from leaving its home country, the
tion, it is meant to be everywhere. If the DMZ wasn’t cloud provider should make sure the data never does.
dead before, it certainly is now. The DMZ was always Cloud providers should physically prevent (using
porous, with many more holes than any defender physical network dividers, routers, switches, IPSec,



access control lists, and so on) server and data com- defenses and response plans ready to go. All the hard
mingling. If a particular server never needs to talk to work and peering agreements should be established
most other servers, it should be prevented from doing ahead of time.
so. If a client computer shouldn’t be able to talk to
other client computers, make sure there is no way for USE DNS SECURITY
an authenticated users to leverage cloud access to gain If your cloud provider’s DNS services support it, con-
access to the other. sider implementing DNSSEC (DNS Security) between
your DNS servers and the provider’s DNS servers.
ENCRYPT YOUR DATA Once enabled, DNSSEC ensures that dependent cli-
Data should always be encrypted when stored (using ents always get verified, authenticated DNS resolution
separate symmetric encryption keys) and transmitted. If entries from authoritative DNS servers. Unfortunately,
this is implemented appropriately, even if another ten- DNSSEC is enabled only on a small percentage of
ant can access the data, all that will appear is gibberish. DNS providers. Ask your cloud provider if it will con-
Shared symmetric keys for data encryption should be sider creating DNSSEC “trust anchors” between your
discouraged, yet tenants should be able to access their site(s) and the provider’s — or consider implementing
own encryption keys and change them when neces- static DNS records on your side, to prevent malicious
sary. Cloud providers should not have ready access to DNS redirection attacks.
tenant encryption keys.
USE RED HERRINGS AND AN EARLY
USE STRONG AUTHENTICATION WARNING SYSTEM
Make sure any Identity 2.0 system you participate in Some cloud providers and customers create “red her-
has a strong history of good security and uses open ring” data as an early warning system. Red herring data
protocols. Proprietary, single-site authentications sys- is fake data that is injected into a database and then
tems may seem to present lower risk than shared sys- monitored to see if it “leaks out.” For instance, suppose
tems do, but the information surrounding proprietary the cloud provider creates complete client records for
systems is rarely shared. Systems that use and support Fred and Wilma Flintstone. Everything about the fake
open standards usually have the added protection of record would be unlikely to exist in the real world.
community analysis. Weaknesses are frequently found Then the cloud vendor (or client) uses data leak detec-
early and coded out. Newfound vulnerabilities are usu- tion systems and procedures to monitor for that specific
ally shared and fixed faster. data. If the data is found outside the cloud provider’s
system, then it could be an early warning that malicious
PREPARE TO PREVENT DDoS ATTACKS data theft has occurred and should be investigated.
Attackers are often content with simply denying legiti-
mate users access to their services using DDoS attacks. KILL ALL OLD DATA
Luckily cloud systems are usually very resilient against Cloud providers should ensure that all data no longer
simple flood attacks and excel at ramping up more needed is permanently erased from computer mem-
bandwidth and resources in the face of gigabytes of ory and storage. Shared resources shouldn’t mean per-
malicious traffic. manently shared storage. Clients should contact cloud
Be aware, however, that attackers may attempt to providers to make sure that all submitted data is solely
take down upstream or downstream nodes that are owned by the client and learn what measures providers
not under the control of the cloud provider. More take to ensure the permanent deletion of unneeded data.
than one Internet access provider has been forced to
cut off access for a victimized site simply to preserve CLOUD SECURITY ALLIANCE GUIDANCE
access for everyone else. You shouldn’t be forced to The Cloud Security Alliance is quickly becoming the
come up with creative defenses the first time you’re hit most respected source of guidance for cloud security.
with a DDoS, so make sure you have adequate DDoS I especially encourage interested readers to review


Security Guidance for Critical Areas of Focus in Cloud Excel spreadsheet created for cloud service providers
Computing. This document breaks down cloud security and auditors. It maps security controls to popular com-
into thirteen different domains including: pliance requirements such as COBIT, HIPAA, and PCI
DSS. CSA’s Consensus Assessments Initiative Question-
• Governance and Enterprise Risk Management naire is a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet listing well over a
• Legal and Electronic Discovery hundred questions that map back to the controls listed
• Information Lifecycle Management in the Cloud Controls Matrix. Both of these documents
• Portability and Interoperability are meant to be used together.
• Business Continuity and Disaster Recovery My only complaint is that the controls and con-
• Data Center Operations trol questions are fairly general. For instance, asking
• Incident Response the cloud provider if data is encrypted at rest only
• Application Security starts to get at what you really need to know, which is
• Encryption and Key Management how the encryption has been implemented. The best
• Identity and Access Management encryption algorithms have been pushed aside by poor
• Virtualization deployment practices.
Still, the CSA is the best independent source of
The CSA has done an excellent job of highlighting cloud security advice today. If you’re considering a
all the computer security bases as they apply to cloud service, you’ll want to find out how it measures
cloud offerings. up to the CSA’s guidelines. For an example, see Micro-
The CSA’s Cloud Controls Matrix is a Microsoft soft’s Office 365 Standard Response Document. i

ADDITIONAL RESOURCES
Cloud computing is a new paradigm that requires new security defenses. The material included here covers only a small
portion of the considerations you need to weigh when preparing a holistic cloud defense. The following Web assets are
excellent sources of additional information:

NIST’s cloud section A great place to quickly get up csrc.nist.gov/groups/SNS/cloud-computing
to speed on cloud terminology
without reading a book.

Cloud Security Alliance www.cloudsecurityalliance.org/certifyme.html
IT Certification

Cloud Threats and blogs.msdn.com/b/jmeier/archive/2010/07/08/
Security Measures cloud-security-threats-and-countermeasures-at-a-glance.aspx
MSDN, J. Meier

Black Hat Webcast: An interesting Webcast. www.blackhat.com/html/Webcast/Webcast-2010_cloudsec.html
Chewing the Cloud: on cloud attacks
Attacking Cloud-Based
Services


Cloud security Deep Dive 2011

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