Cloud computing is expected to become a common solution for deploying applications thanks to its capacity to leverage developers from infrastructure management tasks, thus reducing the overall costs and services’ time to market. Several concerns prevent players’ entry in the cloud; security is arguably the most relevant one. Many factors have an impact on cloud security, but it is its multitenant nature that brings the newest and more challenging problems to cloud settings. Here, we analyze the security risks that multitenancy induces to the most established clouds, Infrastructure as a service clouds, and review the literature available to present the most relevant threats, state of the art of solutions that address some of the associated risks. A major conclusion of our analysis is that most reported systems employ access control and encryption techniques to secure the different elements present in a virtualized (multitenant) datacenter. Also, we analyze which are the open issues and challenges to be addressed by cloud systems in the security field.

http://msjavan.persiangig.com/document/Researches/Locking%20the%20sky-%20a%20survey%20on%20IaaS%20cloud%20security.pdf

Locking the sky: a survey on IaaS cloud security

Introduction: The globalization of the pharmaceutical supply chain has introduced new challenges, chief among them, fighting the international criminal trade in fake medicines. As the manufacture, ...

A review of existing and emerging digital technologies to combat the global trade in fake medicines

Although system virtualization is not a new paradigm, the way in which it is used in modern system architectures provides a powerful platform for system building, the advantages of which have only been realized in recent years, as a result of the rapid deployment of commodity hardware and software systems. In principle, virtualization involves the use of an encapsulating software layer (Hypervisor or Virtual Machine Monitor) which surrounds or underlies an operating system and provides the same inputs, outputs, and behavior that would be expected from an actual physical device. This abstraction means that an ideal Virtual Machine Monitor provides an environment to the software equivalent to the host system, but which is decoupled from the hardware state. Because a virtual machine is not dependent on the state of the physical hardware, multiple virtual machines may be installed on a single set of hardware. The decoupling of physical and logical states gives virtualization inherent security benefits. However, the design, implementation, and deployment of virtualization technology have also opened up novel threats and security issues which, while not particular to system virtualization, take on new forms in relation to it. Reverse engineering becomes easier due to introspection capabilities, as encryption keys, security algorithms, low-level protection, intrusion detection, or antidebugging measures can become more easily compromised. Furthermore, associated technologies such as virtual routing and networking can create challenging issues for security, intrusion control, and associated forensic processes. We explain the security considerations and some associated methodologies by which security breaches can occur, and offer recommendations for how virtualized environments can best be protected. Finally, we offer a set of generalized recommendations that can be applied to achieve secure virtualized implementations.

/pdf/virtualization-issues-security-threats-and-solutions-343k4e866d.pdf

Virtualization: Issues, security threats, and solutions

Discipline and Punishment

The main issues with drug safety in the counterfeit medicine supply chain, are to do with how the drugs are initially manufactured. The traceability of right and active pharmaceutical ingredients during actual manufacture is a difficult process, so detecting drugs that do not contain the intended active ingredients can ultimately lead to end-consumer patient harm or even death. Blockchain’s advanced features make it capable of providing a basis for complete traceability of drugs, from manufacturer to end consumer, and the ability to identify counterfeit-drug. This paper aims to address the issue of drug safety using Blockchain and encrypted QR(quick response) code security.

Traceability of counterfeit medicine supply chain through Blockchain

Attribute-based access control (ABAC) and role-based access control (RBAC) are currently the two most popular access control models. Yet, they both have known limitations and offer features complimentary to each other. Due to this fact, integration of RBAC and ABAC has recently emerged as an important area of research. In this paper, we propose an access control model that combines the two models in a novel way in order to unify their benefits. Our approach provides a fine-grained access control mechanism that not only takes contextual information into account while making the access control decisions but is also suitable for applications where access to resources is controlled by exploiting contents of the resources in the policy.

/pdf/attributes-enhanced-role-based-access-control-model-293r3q5iu3.pdf

Attributes Enhanced Role-Based Access Control Model

Role-based access control (RBAC) and attribute-based access control (ABAC) are currently the most prominent access control models. However, they both suffer from limitations and have features complimentary to each other. Due to this fact, integration of RBAC and ABAC has become a hot area of research recently. We propose an access control model that combines the two models in a novel way in order to unify their benefits. Our approach provides a fine-grained access control mechanism that takes into account the current contextual information while making the access control decisions.

/pdf/integrating-attributes-into-role-based-access-control-44noab65em.pdf

Integrating Attributes into Role-Based Access Control

Use of video surveillance has substantially increased in the last few decades. Modern video surveillance systems are equipped with techniques that allow traversal of data in an effective and efficient manner, giving massive powers to operators and potentially compromising the privacy of anyone observed by the system. Several techniques to protect the privacy of individuals have therefore been proposed, but very little research work has focused on the specific security requirements of video surveillance data (in transit or in storage) and on authorizing access to this data. In this paper, we present a general model of video surveillance systems that will help identify the major security and privacy requirements for a video surveillance system and we use this model to identify practical challenges in ensuring the security of video surveillance data in all stages (in transit and at rest). Our study shows a gap between the identified security requirements and the proposed security solutions where future research efforts may focus in this domain.

/pdf/security-and-privacy-in-video-surveillance-requirements-and-3pftjf68a2.pdf

Security and Privacy in Video Surveillance: Requirements and Challenges

Pervasive usage of video surveillance is rapidly increasing in developed countries. Continuous security threats to public safety demand use of such systems. Contemporary video surveillance systems offer advanced functionalities which threaten the privacy of those recorded in the video. There is a need to balance the usage of video surveillance against its negative impact on privacy. This chapter aims to highlight the privacy issues in video surveillance and provides a model to help identify the privacy requirements in a video surveillance system. The authors make a step in the direction of investigating the existing legal infrastructure for ensuring privacy in video surveillance and suggest guidelines in order to help those who want to deploy video surveillance while least compromising the privacy of people and complying with legal infrastructure.

/pdf/video-surveillance-privacy-issues-and-legal-compliance-483uhh5ebz.pdf

Video Surveillance: Privacy Issues and Legal Compliance

Virtualization brings exibility to the data center and enables separations allowing for better security properties. For these security properties to be fully utilized, virtual machines need to be able to connect to secure services such as networking and storage. This paper addresses the problems associated with managing the cryptographic keys upon which such services rely by ensuring that keys remain within the trusted computing base. Here we describe a general architecture for managing keys tied to the underlying virtualized systems, with a specific example given for secure storage.

http://hpl.hp.com/news/2009/jan-mar/pdf/baldwin_osr_crc_11.pdf

Qasim Mahmood Rajpoot

Papers

Attributes Enhanced Role-Based Access Control Model

Integrating Attributes into Role-Based Access Control

Security and Privacy in Video Surveillance: Requirements and Challenges

Video Surveillance: Privacy Issues and Legal Compliance

Providing secure services for a virtual infrastructure