Tackling cloud security issues and forensics model

Abstract

Cloud computing is getting increased attention of the information and communication technologies (ICT) industry recently. The cloud service providers foresee it as a source of promising financial gains, the clients find it a convenient solution where the enterprises may get started on their computing activities without investing on the in-house facilities of hardware and software. They can outsource the computing and archiving activities to the cloud service providers (CSP) though Internet. There are many dimensions of these activities and the researchers are trying to find acceptable solutions for the industry. In this paper, we have focused on the information security issues when migrating to a cloud environment. The confidence of end user can be won partially by the guarantees of service provider and use of cryptographic techniques. It is important that the Intrusion Detection Systems (IDS) should be included in the models which support forensic study whenever required. It is equally important to address the issue of anti-forensic methods that the service providers may use to hide their malicious activities. Therefore the clients would like to have a better, in-depth knowledge of information management at service providers' end. For this purpose tools to probe into the cloud services are required. To elaborate on this issue we have chosen the data archiving and storage model used for medical service providers and hospitals. It is a classic test-case where Patients' history has to be maintained under the guidelines of HIPPA. The Amazon security model has been reviewed for this purpose both for archiving and disaster recovery. An acceptable security model over the cloud architecture is also proposed.