Write short notes on any three. a) Host Level Security b) Network Level Security c) Application Level Security d) Virtual Machine Security
1. Host Security
Host security describes how your server is set up for the following tasks:
- Preventing attacks.
- Minimizing the impact of a successful attack on the overall system
- Responding to attacks when they occur.
It always helps to have software with no security holes. Good luck with that! In the real world, the best approach for preventing attacks is to assume your software has security holes. As I noted earlier in this chapter, each service you run on a host presents a distinct attack vector into the host. The more attack vectors, the more likely an attacker will find one with a security exploit. You must therefore minimize the different kinds of software running on a server.
Given the assumption that your services are vulnerable, your most significant tool in preventing attackers from exploiting a vulnerability once it becomes known is the rapid rollout of security patches. Here’s where the dynamic nature of the cloud really alters what you can do from a security perspective. In a traditional data center, rolling out security patches across an entire infrastructure is time-consuming and risky. In the cloud, rolling out a patch across the infrastructure takes three simple steps:
- Patch your AMI with the new security fixes.
- Test the results.
- Relaunch your virtual servers.
2. Network Level Security
All data on the network need to be secured. Strong network traffic encryption techniques such as Secure Socket Layer (SSL) and Transport Layer Security (TLS) can be used to prevent the leakage of sensitive information. Several key security elements such as data security, data integrity, authentication and authorization, data confidentiality, web application security, virtualization vulnerability, availability, backup, and data breaches should be carefully considered to keep the cloud up and running continuously.
3. APPLICATION-LEVEL SECURITY
Studies indicate that most websites are secured at the network level while there may be security loopholes at the application level which may allow information access to unauthorized users. Software and hardware resources can be used to provide security to applications. In this way, attackers will not be able to get control over these applications and change them. XSS attacks, Cookie Poisoning, Hidden field manipulation, SQL injection attacks, DoS attacks, and Google Hacking are some examples of threats to application-level security which resulting from the unauthorized usage of the applications.
4. Virtual Machine Security
Recent years have seen great advancements in both cloud computing and virtualization On one hand there is the ability to pool various resources to provide software-as-a-service, infrastructure-as-a-service, and platform-as-a-service. At its most basic, this is what describes cloud computing. On the other hand, we have virtual machines that provide agility, flexibility, and scalability to the cloud resources by allowing the vendors to copy, move, and manipulate their VMs at will. The term virtual machine essentially describes sharing the resources of one single physical computer into various computers within itself. VMware and virtual boxes are very commonly used virtual systems on desktops. Cloud computing effectively stands for many computers pretending to be one computing environment. Obviously, cloud computing would have many virtualized systems to maximize resources.
Keeping this information in mind, we can now look into the security issues that arise within a cloud-computing scenario. As more and more organizations follow the “Into the Cloud” concept, malicious hackers keep finding ways to get their hands on valuable information by manipulating safeguards and breaching the security layers (if any) of cloud environments. One issue is that the cloud-computing scenario is not as transparent as it claims to be. The service user has no clue about how his information is processed and stored. In addition, the service user cannot directly control the flow of data/information storage and processing. The service provider usually is not aware of the details of the service running in his or her environment. Thus, possible attacks on the cloud-computing environment can be classified into:
- Resource attacks: These kinds of attacks include manipulating the available resources into mounting a large-scale botnet attack. These kinds of attacks target either cloud providers or service providers.
- Data attacks: These kinds of attacks include unauthorized modification of sensitive data at nodes, or performing configuration changes to enable a sniffing attack via a specific device These attacks are focused on cloud providers, service providers, and also on service users.
- Denial of Service attacks: The creation of a new virtual machine is not a difficult task, and thus, creating rogue VMs and allocating huge spaces for them can lead to a Denial of Service attack for service providers when they opt to create a new VM on the cloud. This kind of attack is generally called a virtual machine sprawling.
- Backdoor: Another threat in a virtual environment empowered by cloud computing is the use of backdoor VMs that leak sensitive information and can destroy data privacy.
- Having virtual machines would indirectly allow anyone with access to the host disk files of the VM to take a snapshot or illegal copy of the whole This can lead to corporate espionage and piracy of legitimate products.
