Security in DevOps: understanding the most efficient way to integrate security in the agile software development process

Modern development methodologies follow a fast and dynamic pace, which gives great attention to customers’ satisfaction in the delivery of new releases. On the other hand, the work pursued to secure a system, if not adapted to the new development trend, can risk to slow down the delivery of new software and the adaptability typical for an Agile environment. Therefore, it is paramount to think about a new way to integrate security into the development framework, in order to secure the software in the best way without slowing down the pace of the developers. Moreover, the implementation of automatic and repeatable security controls inside the development pipeline can help to catch the presence of vulnerabilities as early as possible, thus reducing costs, comparing to solving the issues at later stages. The thesis presents a series of recommendations on how to best deploy a so called DevSecOps approach and applies the theory to the use case of Awake.AI, a Finnish startup company focusing its business on the maritime industry. It is not always easy and feasible to practically apply all the suggestions presented in the literature to a real case scenario, but rather the recommendations need to be adapted and forged in a way that best suits the situation and the current target. It is undeniable that the presence of a strong and efficient secure development framework can give substantial advantage to the success of a company. In fact, not only it makes sure that the delivery of good quality code to the customers is not slowed down, but it also dramatically reduces the risk of incurring in expensive security incidents. Lastly, it is valuable to also mention that, being able to show a clean and efficient approach to security, the framework improves the reputation and trustfulness of the company under the eyes of the customers

Method of Information Security Risk Analysis for Virtualized System

The growth of usage of Information Technology (IT) in daily operations of enterprises causes the value and the vulnerability of information to be at the peak of interest. Moreover, distributed computing revolutionized the out-sourcing of computing functions, thus allowing flexible IT solutions. Since the concept of information goes beyond the traditional text documents, reaching manufacturing, machine control, and, to a certain extent – reasoning – it is a great responsibility to maintain appropriate information security. Information Security (IS) risk analysis and maintenance require extensive knowledge about the possessed assets as well as the technologies behind them, to recognize the threats and vulnerabilities the infrastructure is facing. A way of formal description of the infrastructure – the Enterprise Architecture (EA) – offers a multiperspective view of the whole enterprise, linking together business processes as well as the infrastructure. Several IS risk analysis solutions based on the EA exist. However, lack of methods of IS risk analysis for virtualization technologies complicates the procedure, thus leading to reduced availability of such analysis. The dissertation consists of an introduction, three main chapters and general conclusions. The first chapter introduces the problem of information security risk analysis and its’ automation. Moreover, state-of-the-art methodologies and their implementations for automated information security risk analysis are discussed. The second chapter proposes a novel method for risk analysis of virtualization components based on the most recent data, including threat classification and specification, control means and metrics of the impact. The third chapter presents an experimental evaluation of the proposed method, implementing it to the Cyber Security Modeling Language (CySeMoL) and comparing the analysis results to well-calibrated expert knowledge. It was concluded that the automation of virtualization solution risk analysis provides sufficient data for adjustment and implementation of security controls to maintain optimum security level

Ransomware Education: Availability, Accessibility, and Ease of Use

With cybersecurity constantly in the media outlets with breaches, cybercrime, and cyberwarfare, it has become a significant concern for all. One of the most recent breaches in the summer of 2021 was the Colonial Pipeline breach, which has proven the country\u27s reliance on these industrial control systems and networking. The systems were taken for ransom by a new type of ransomware written in a different programming language. Although the Colonial Pipeline breach was quickly addressed, the impact of the gas shortage and the response time were alarming at triaging the breach. However, this attack showed the public how dangerous ransomware could be, mainly when groups target crucial supply chains and infrastructure critical to the functioning of a nation\u27s economy. The only proper solution to these attacks is a standard solution to many information security issues, user training. However, the reality of the problem is that even if computers were one hundred percent secure and infallible machines, which they are not, user error could still compromise an entire system

Applying Memory Forensics to Rootkit Detection

Volatile memory dump and its analysis is an essential part of digital forensics. Among a number of various software and hardware approaches for memory dumping there are authors who point out that some of these approaches are not resilient to various anti-forensic techniques, and others that require a reboot or are highly platform dependent. New resilient tools have certain disadvantages such as low speed or vulnerability to rootkits which directly manipulate kernel structures e.g. page tables. A new memory forensic system - Malware Analysis System for Hidden Knotty Anomalies (MASHKA) is described in this paper. It is resilient to popular anti-forensic techniques. The system can be used for doing a wide range of memory forensics tasks. This paper describes how to apply the system for research and detection of kernel mode rootkits and also presents analysis of the most popular anti-rootkit tools.Comment: 25 pages, 3 figures, 8 tables. Paper presented at the Proceedings of the 9th annual Conference on Digital Forensics, Security and Law (CDFSL), 115-141, Richmond, VA, USA. (2014, May 28-29

Cloud Computing cost and energy optimization through Federated Cloud SoS

2017 Fall.Includes bibliographical references.The two most significant differentiators amongst contemporary Cloud Computing service providers have increased green energy use and datacenter resource utilization. This work addresses these two issues from a system's architectural optimization viewpoint. The proposed approach herein, allows multiple cloud providers to utilize their individual computing resources in three ways by: (1) cutting the number of datacenters needed, (2) scheduling available datacenter grid energy via aggregators to reduce costs and power outages, and lastly by (3) utilizing, where appropriate, more renewable and carbon-free energy sources. Altogether our proposed approach creates an alternative paradigm for a Federated Cloud SoS approach. The proposed paradigm employs a novel control methodology that is tuned to obtain both financial and environmental advantages. It also supports dynamic expansion and contraction of computing capabilities for handling sudden variations in service demand as well as for maximizing usage of time varying green energy supplies. Herein we analyze the core SoS requirements, concept synthesis, and functional architecture with an eye on avoiding inadvertent cascading conditions. We suggest a physical architecture that diminishes unwanted outcomes while encouraging desirable results. Finally, in our approach, the constituent cloud services retain their independent ownership, objectives, funding, and sustainability means. This work analyzes the core SoS requirements, concept synthesis, and functional architecture. It suggests a physical structure that simulates the primary SoS emergent behavior to diminish unwanted outcomes while encouraging desirable results. The report will analyze optimal computing generation methods, optimal energy utilization for computing generation as well as a procedure for building optimal datacenters using a unique hardware computing system design based on the openCompute community as an illustrative collaboration platform. Finally, the research concludes with security features cloud federation requires to support to protect its constituents, its constituents tenants and itself from security risks

Calm before the storm: the challenges of cloud computing in digital forensics

Cloud computing is a rapidly evolving information technology (IT) phenomenon. Rather than procure, deploy and manage a physical IT infrastructure to host their software applications, organizations are increasingly deploying their infrastructure into remote, virtualized environments, often hosted and managed by third parties. This development has significant implications for digital forensic investigators, equipment vendors, law enforcement, as well as corporate compliance and audit departments (among others). Much of digital forensic practice assumes careful control and management of IT assets (particularly data storage) during the conduct of an investigation. This paper summarises the key aspects of cloud computing and analyses how established digital forensic procedures will be invalidated in this new environment. Several new research challenges addressing this changing context are also identified and discussed

Icarus: a cloud security perspective

Dissertação de mestrado integrado em Informatics EngineeringIncreasingly, cloud computing is used because of its significant advantages. However, this use can increase risk, as the solutions are not in the organizations’ infrastructure but in an external perimeter. This thesis presents a study of cloud security in which an agnostic reference architecture is developed for any cloud service provider. The three most used providers are also compared in order to materialize the architecture and make a proof of concept. The solution presented was based on the controls in Annex A of ISO 27001 (information security) and aimed to minimize the increased risk of applications hosted in the cloud as much as possible and speed up the process of any need to obtain ISO 27001 certification.Cada vez mais, a computação em nuvem é utilizada devido às suas grandes vantagens. No entanto, esta utilização pode vir com um risco acrescido, pois as soluções não estão nas infraestruturas das organizações mas, sim num perímetro externo. Esta tese apresenta um estudo de segurança na nuvem em que é desenvolvida uma arquitectura de referencia agnóstica a qualquer prestador de computação em nuvem. São comparados também os três prestadores mais utilizados a fim de materializar a arquitectura e fazer uma prova de conceito. A solução apresentada foi baseada nos controlos do anexo A do ISO 27001 (segurança da informação) e tem como objetivo minimizar ao máximo o risco acrescido das aplicações hospedadas na nuvem e acelerar o processo de eventual necessidade de obter a certificação do ISO 27001