Towards integrity measurement in virtualized environments — A hypervisor based sensory integrity measurement architecture (SIMA)

Abstract

Today, the security of virtualization is based on the isolation properties provided by the hypervisor. This security-by-isolation concept depends on the high integrity of each virtual system as well as a trustworthy host system. Erroneous implementation or conceptional failure limits this isolation mechanism. Today the strength of the isolation can only be guaranteed after a boot operation. Missing is a permanent surveillance of the separation mechanisms during the system operation. That is the main subject of our proposal. We suggest the integration of a sensory integrity measurement architecture (SIMA) for this purpose. SIMA consists of trusted virtual sensors and an analyzing sink to monitor the integrity of the system permanently during operation.