HOW TO BOOST YOUR CLOUD? – HAKIN9 EXTRA 10/2012

BEWARE YOUR CLOUD
How to Protect What’s No Longer in Your Possession? – Security in the Cloud
By Court Graham

The concept of cloud computing is nothing new. Consumer applications that we are all familiar with embody the concept of the cloud. Applications which have been around since the early 1990’s like Hotmail, Yahoo Mail, and Amazon.com helped to define what we consider the World Wide Web. As time moved on, we all began to utilize & trust our life’s savings behind online line banking websites. The mere convenience of not having to visit a local branch office to wait in long lines drastically changed the business model for the banking industry.

What are the Risk Factors of Cloud Computing?
By Raheel Ahmad

Another cup of coffee and another article. IT people are well aware of what cloud computing is and therefore I am not jumping into a discussion of how cloud computing works. Instead, my focus will be on the drops of rain water from Cloud (i.e. highlighting the risk factors you carry with cloud computing). You will be wet while standing beneath a rainy cloud until and unless you open up your umbrella if and only if you have one.

How has the Real Cloud Evolved?
By Eddie Mize

I deeply suspected this since the concept of the “Cloud” became a viable offering, but, the last couple of years have allowed me to see specific vulnerabilities in the real world and also gain some understanding on how they came about. Let me describe the evolution of a real “Cloud” provider environment. This environment included over 7,000 servers (bare metal and virtual) and was spread over 15 data centers.

PRAISE YOUR CLOUD
What are the Benefits of Cloud?
By Ian Moyse

The most common objections for holding back SaaS (Software as a Service) adoption as reported from end customers, are named as ‘security’ and ‘reliability.’ This is interesting when you consider that SaaS Security is consistently reported as the fastest growth area of SaaS. This ‘security’ objection usually stems from the customers’ perspective; they are concerned about the security of their data held outside their perimeter by the cloud provider.

From the Clouds to the Ground
Cloud Security Alliance EMEA Congress
By Moshe Ferber

Unsurprisingly, it was a very cloudy day on the end of September when about 200 cloud computing professionals gathered in Amsterdam Barbizon Palace Hotel for the annual cloud security alliance EMEA congress.
The diversity of the crowd indicated how complicated the challenges of cloud computing are. I don’t recall many conferences where attorneys with tailored suites sat side by side with technical geeks and government officials. The variety of people present proved that cloud computing has expanded beyond a technical buzzword and became a concept that draws significant attention from all market & government sectors.

How to Build Your Own Cloud for Ubuntu?
By Zana Ilhan

Nowadays, Cloud computing is a popular computing approach since it allows for resources to be provisioned according to demand basis, i.e. cloud users can rent resources as they become necessary. This model motivated several academic and non-academic institutions to develop open-source cloud solutions. This article presents cloud computing approach of Ubuntu. The authors hope that the observation and classification of Ubuntu’s cloud solutions can leverage the cloud computing research area providing a good starting point to who needs build their own cloud environment.

BOOST YOUR CLOUD
How to Conduct Risk Assessments of Cloud Service Providers?
By Michael Lemire

Risk managers and information security professionals are tasked with reviewing the security posture of cloud service providers and their platforms. This article provides an overview of the cloud shared responsibility model, identifies the unique risks of cloud computing, and discusses best practice and audit frameworks which may be leveraged when conducting a risk analysis of cloud service providers, and discusses how to protect your customers and your organization.

How to Manage Your Cloud?
By Derick Burton

Cloud security. Every time I hear the words I want to shiver. It’s not that I don’t believe that security in the cloud is impossible, or even that the implementation is difficult (although it can be). It’s all the associated issues that are often far beyond the entire technology stack which need to be considered that give me sleepless nights.

How to Manage Your Private Cloud?
By Phoram Mehta

Cloud computing has been receiving an immense amount of coverage in the last few years. Experts, vendors, and users alike have voiced their opinion on every imaginable aspect. As the technology matures, so does its understanding and the increase in the adoption of cloud service providers is a good reflection of this trend. Another artifact of the increase in available resources on cloud computing is that organizations are able to make informed decisions on how to take advantage of this technology.

How to Secure Your Cloud?
By George Lewis

When I first heard the term Cloud or Cloud Computing, I was wondering what this technology was all about and what were the benefits it would bring to the IT community and to the business as well.
At that time, I tried my best to read articles and books about Cloud and securing it. Some of them were clear and other were just using technology terms to introduce the new concept without getting into details. I always wanted to write something which could be considered the basics to understand the Cloud technology and how we can secure it from the defense-in-depth standpoint. So, this can be considered a reference whenever you are talking Cloud Security.