Toward Software-Defined Moving Target Defense for Secure Service Deployment Enhanced with a User-Defined Orchestration

Abstract

In recent years, cloud native computing, which involves the deployment of scalable applications enhanced with containers, microservices, and serverless functions, has been actively studied to maximize its efficiency, flexibility, and economic feasibility. In this regard, studies on the security of the cloud native computing environment have been conducted. Among various studies on the security of these systems, moving target defense (MTD), which is an area of research that blocks various security threats in advance by actively changing the main properties of the protected target to deceive attackers, has been actively studied and developed. However, cloud native computing is highly dynamic; it is difficult to apply MTD technologies that actively change static system properties. Therefore, a software-defined MTD framework was designed for easier application of MTD technology to the cloud native environment. In this study, the user-defined adaptability of the software-defined MTD framework was implemented, and it was verified that the properties of the target service were changed according to previously defined mutation properties.