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Practical tips for securing your cloud

Practical tips for securing your cloud. James Turner, IBRS Advisor August 2012. Warning. This presentation has a lot of pictures of clouds. Practical tips to securing your cloud. Defining the cloud What IBRS clients are asking & What the experts say Four interesting areas of risk Summary

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Practical tips for securing your cloud

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  1. Practical tips for securing your cloud James Turner, IBRS Advisor August 2012

  2. Warning • This presentation has a lot of pictures of clouds

  3. Practical tips to securing your cloud • Defining the cloud • What IBRS clients are asking & What the experts say • Four interesting areas of risk • Summary • A glimpse of the future • Questions

  4. Defining cloud • The most widely accepted definition of cloud comes from the National Institute of Science and Technology (NIST) : • On demand self-service • Broad network access • Resource pooling • Rapid elasticity • Pay-per-use measured service • I’m talking about SaaS Morning Glory clouds – Gulf of Carpentaria. Source: NASA. Credit: Mick Petroff

  5. What IBRS clients are asking & what the experts say • “Review our SaaS contracts for technical risks” • Defence Signals Directorate (DSD) • availability of data and business functionality; • protecting data from unauthorised access; and, • handling security incidents. • Australian Government Information Management Office (AGIMO) • Liability • Performance management • Ending the arrangement • National Archives of Australia

  6. Four SaaS vendor contract reviews • Findings – there are 4 core areas of risk in these vendor MSAs: • Light on specifics • Heavy on indemnity • Default customer referencing • Flimsy data portability

  7. Light on specifics • Will protect customer data “in a manner consistent with general industry standards reasonably applicable” • Will use “commercially reasonable efforts to make the purchased services available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week”. • Impact: nothing to hold them to! Light and wispy cirrus clouds

  8. Heavy on indemnity • They will not be held liable for any loss of data, or revenue, or profits. • Service credits, if available, are like eating lettuce • You expend more energy chewing than you get from the consumption • Impact: nothing to hold them to! • (and look at how well that worked in the software industry!)

  9. Customer reference by default • “Customer agrees to work with <vendor’s> Marketing Department to produce a news release to Customer’s use of the Service” • Risks of being outed as a customer: • “kick me” • Collateral damage • Target rich environment • Economy of effort for attackers • Impact: what has this done to your risk profile?

  10. Flimsy data portability • Only 1 of the 4 mentioned a format • Proprietary data formats help create lock-in • One source of truth? • Migrating to another vendor? • Who owns the metadata? • Can you access security logs? • Impact: Vendor lock in, paying for migration, rivals being sold your work Storm front over Phillip Island, Nov 11, 2011. Source: ABC.net.au

  11. Conclusion: Practical tips to securing your cloud • Understand the risks • Create a list of the technical risks • War game different scenarios, attacks, or failures • Walk these through with business stakeholders • Contract management • involved vs. committed? • Be biased toward vendors who commit to standards • Note: Take-it-or-leave-it contracts are positively viewed by some Asperatus Cloud, New Zealand, undated photo. Source: National Geographic

  12. An interconnected world... ... leads to exponential complexity and unforeseen interdependencies!

  13. Questions?

  14. References • “Cloud Computing Security Considerations”, Defence Signals Directorate (Australian Department of Defence), April 2011. • “Better Practice Guide: Negotiating the cloud – legal issues in cloud computing agreements”, Australian Government Information Management Office, February 2012. • “A Checklist for Records Management and the Cloud”, National Archives of Australia, 2011. • IBRS research: • "The Next Perfect IT Storm: The Red Shift, Utility Computing", IBRS, April 2008. • "Cloud computing, you may need a parachute", IBRS, April 2009. • "Legal considerations that apply in cloud computing", IBRS, May 2009. • "Cloud computing and the law - data considerations", IBRS, June 2009. • "Cloud computing and the law - business implication", IBRS, July 2009. • "A legal checklist before taking off into the cloud", IBRS, August 2009. • "APRA offers timely advice against losing your head in the cloud", IBRS, November 2010. • "Two tests to evaluate Cloud economics", IBRS, March 2011. • "A matrix for cloud computing risk analysis", IBRS, October 2011. • "Cloud security - the real risks", IBRS, January 2012. • “How do you catch a cloud and pin it down? Part 1”, IBRS, May 2012 • “How do you catch a cloud and pin it down? Part 2”, IBRS, July 2012

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