Security Polices on the Cloud

970 Words2 Pages

Security in the cloud is achieved, in part, through third party controls and assurance much like in traditional outsourcing arrangements. But since there is no common cloud computing security standard, there are additional challenges associated with this. Many cloud vendors implement their own proprietary standards and security technologies, and implement differing security models, which need to be evaluated on their own merits. In a vendor cloud model, it is ultimately down to adopting customer organizations to ensure that security in the cloud meets their own security polices through requirements gathering provider risk assessments, due diligence, and assurance activities. Privileged user access. Cloud providers generally have unlimited access to user data, controls are needed to address the risk of privileged user access leading to compromised customer data. Once data is stored in the cloud, the provider has access to that data and also controls access to that data by other entities(including other users of the cloud and other third party suppliers). Maintaining confidentiality of data in the cloud and limiting privileged user access can be achieved by legally enforcing the requirements of the cloud provider through contractual obligations and assurance mechanisms to ensure that confidentiality of the data is maintained to required standards. The cloud provider must have demonstrable security access control policies and technical solutions in place that prevent privilege escalation by standard users, enable auditing of user actions, and support the segregation of duties principle for privileged users in order to prevent and detect malicious insider activity. Data location and segregation. Customers may not know where their d... ... middle of paper ... ...ing. In a trusted computing environment, a trusted monitor is installed at the cloud server that can monitor or audit the operations of the cloud server. The trusted monitor can provide proof of compliance to the data owner, guaranteeing that certain access policies have not been violated. To ensure integrity of the monitor, trusted computing also allows secure bootstrapping of this monitor to run beside (and securely isolated from) the operating system and applications. The monitor can enforce access control policies and perform monitoring/auditing tasks. To produce a proof of compliance, the code of the monitor is signed, as well as a statement of compliance produced by the monitor. When the data owner receives this proof of compliance, it can verify that the correct monitor code is run, and that the cloud server has complied with access control policies.

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