DCDIDP: A distributed, collaborative, and data-driven intrusion detection and prevention framework for cloud computing environments

With the growing popularity of cloud computing, the exploitation of possible vulnerabilities grows at the same pace; the distributed nature of the cloud makes it an attractive target for potential intruders. Despite security issues delaying its adoption, cloud computing has already become an unstoppable force; thus, security mechanisms to ensure its secure adoption are an immediate need. Here, we focus on intrusion detection and prevention systems (IDPSs) to defend against the intruders. In this paper, we propose a Distributed, Collaborative, and Data-driven Intrusion Detection and Prevention system (DCDIDP). Its goal is to make use of the resources in the cloud and provide a holistic IDPS for all cloud service providers which collaborate with other peers in a distributed manner at different architectural levels to respond to attacks. We present the DCDIDP framework, whose infrastructure level is composed of three logical layers: network, host, and global as well as platform and software levels. Then, we review its components and discuss some existing approaches to be used for the modules in our proposed framework. Furthermore, we discuss developing a comprehensive trust management framework to support the establishment and evolution of trust among different cloud service providers. © 2011 ICST

Identity in research infrastructure and scientific communication: Report from the 1st IRISC workshop, Helsinki Sep 12-13, 2011

Motivation for the IRISC workshop came from the observation that identity and digital identification are increasingly important factors in modern scientific research, especially with the now near-ubiquitous use of the Internet as a global medium for dissemination and debate of scientific knowledge and data, and as a platform for scientific collaborations and large-scale e-science activities.

The 1 1/2 day IRISC2011 workshop sought to explore a series of interrelated topics under two main themes: i) unambiguously identifying authors/creators & attributing their scholarly works, and ii) individual identification and access management in the context of identity federations. Specific aims of the workshop included:

• Raising overall awareness of key technical and non-technical challenges, opportunities and developments.
• Facilitating a dialogue, cross-pollination of ideas, collaboration and coordination between diverse – and largely unconnected – communities.
• Identifying & discussing existing/emerging technologies, best practices and requirements for researcher identification.

This report provides background information on key identification-related concepts & projects, describes workshop proceedings and summarizes key workshop findings

Designing privacy for scalable electronic healthcare linkage

A unified electronic health record (EHR) has potentially immeasurable benefits to society, and the current healthcare industry drive to create a single EHR reflects this. However, adoption is slow due to two major factors: the disparate nature of data and storage facilities of current healthcare systems and the security ramifications of accessing and using that data and concerns about potential misuse of that data. To attempt to address these issues this paper presents the VANGUARD (Virtual ANonymisation Grid for Unified Access of Remote Data) system which supports adaptive security-oriented linkage of disparate clinical data-sets to support a variety of virtual EHRs avoiding the need for a single schematic standard and natural concerns of data owners and other stakeholders on data access and usage. VANGUARD has been designed explicit with security in mind and supports clear delineation of roles for data linkage and usage