Trusted Computing and Secure Virtualization in Cloud Computing

Large-scale deployment and use of cloud computing in industry is accompanied and in the same time hampered by concerns regarding protection of data handled by cloud computing providers. One of the consequences of moving data processing and storage off company premises is that organizations have less control over their infrastructure. As a result, cloud service (CS) clients must trust that the CS provider is able to protect their data and infrastructure from both external and internal attacks. Currently however, such trust can only rely on organizational processes declared by the CS provider and can not be remotely verified and validated by an external party. Enabling the CS client to verify the integrity of the host where the virtual machine instance will run, as well as to ensure that the virtual machine image has not been tampered with, are some steps towards building trust in the CS provider. Having the tools to perform such verifications prior to the launch of the VM instance allows the CS clients to decide in runtime whether certain data should be stored- or calculations should be made on the VM instance offered by the CS provider. This thesis combines three components -- trusted computing, virtualization technology and cloud computing platforms -- to address issues of trust and security in public cloud computing environments. Of the three components, virtualization technology has had the longest evolution and is a cornerstone for the realization of cloud computing. Trusted computing is a recent industry initiative that aims to implement the root of trust in a hardware component, the trusted platform module. The initiative has been formalized in a set of specifications and is currently at version 1.2. Cloud computing platforms pool virtualized computing, storage and network resources in order to serve a large number of customers customers that use a multi-tenant multiplexing model to offer on-demand self-service over broad network. Open source cloud computing platforms are, similar to trusted computing, a fairly recent technology in active development. The issue of trust in public cloud environments is addressed by examining the state of the art within cloud computing security and subsequently addressing the issues of establishing trust in the launch of a generic virtual machine in a public cloud environment. As a result, the thesis proposes a trusted launch protocol that allows CS clients to verify and ensure the integrity of the VM instance at launch time, as well as the integrity of the host where the VM instance is launched. The protocol relies on the use of Trusted Platform Module (TPM) for key generation and data protection. The TPM also plays an essential part in the integrity attestation of the VM instance host. Along with a theoretical, platform-agnostic protocol, the thesis also describes a detailed implementation design of the protocol using the OpenStack cloud computing platform. In order the verify the implementability of the proposed protocol, a prototype implementation has built using a distributed deployment of OpenStack. While the protocol covers only the trusted launch procedure using generic virtual machine images, it presents a step aimed to contribute towards the creation of a secure and trusted public cloud computing environment

An Assessment of Practical Hands-On Lab Activities in Network Security Management

With the advancement in technology over the past decades, networks have become increasingly large and complex. In the meantime, cyberattacks have become highly sophisticated making them difficult to detect. These changes make securing a network more challenging than ever before. Hence, it is critical to prepare a comprehensive guide of network security management for students assist them in becoming network security professionals. The objective of this paper is to introduce a variety of techniques related to network security management, such as Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP), event management, security policy management, risk management, access control, and remote monitoring. With the usage of these techniques, malicious activities from outsiders and misuse by insiders can be effectively monitored and managed. A network learning environment is proposed for students to practice network security management experiments. In addition, hands-on lab exercises are suggested. These activities will help students become familiar with the operations of network security management and allow them to further apply practical skills to protect networks

Hardware-Backed Confidential Blockchain

Tese de Mestrado, Engenharia Informática, 2022, Universidade de Lisboa, Faculdade de CiênciasIn the last few years, distributed computing has shifted towards execution using adversarial environments, mostly due to the rising costs of owning proprietary data centers. Due to privacy concerns, confidentiality guarantees are now es- sential to distribute computation of sensitive information. As such, this thesis focuses on those demands, delivering Con-BFT, a SMR-BFT protocol with confidentiality guaran- tees, using Intel SGX primitives, which allow for trusted execution. This trusted execution also allows for equivocation prevention, which can be used to improve the underly- ing consensus protocol, creating a more efficient SMR-BFT framework, while also providing a layer of confidentiality over the stored user-driven information. This thesis focuses on a possible solution for developing such a protocol, evaluating its overall level of usability for practical everyday use, and how Intel SGX affects the development of similar systems