The goal of the Cloud Application Security domain is to provide you with knowledge as it relates to cloud application security. Through an exploration of the software development lifecycle, you will gain an understanding of utilizing secure software and understand the controls necessary for developing secure cloud environments and program interfaces.
You will gain knowledge in identity and access management solutions for the cloud and the cloud application architecture. You’ll also learn how to ensure data and application availability, integrity, and confidentiality (AIC) through cloud software assurance and validation.
Domain Objectives
After completing this domain, you will be able to do the following:
Identify the necessary training and awareness required for successful cloud application security deployment, including common pitfalls and vulnerabilities
Describe the software development lifecycle process for a cloud environment
Demonstrate the use and application of the software development lifecycle as it applies to secure software in a cloud environment
Identify the requirements for creating secure identity and access management solutions
Describe the specific cloud application architecture
Describe the steps necessary to ensure and validate cloud software
Identify the necessary functional and security testing for software assurance
Summarize the process for verifying secure software, including application programming interface (API) and supply chain management
Introduction
As cloud-based application development continues to gain popularity and widespread adoption, it is important to recognize the benefits and efficiencies, along with the challenges and complexities.
Cloud development typically includes integrated development environments (IDEs), application lifecycle management components, and application security testing inherent to the continued and expanded use of technology to deliver services, organizations are presented with quantitative and qualitative risks and challenges.
The failure to address these risks directly affects the organization, its software supply chain (extended enterprise API management), and its customers.
For the appropriate steps and controls to be implemented, these organizations must understand application security in a cloud environment, along with the differences from traditional information technology (IT) computing.
Just as traditional deployments within a data center or even a hosted solution where network controls are ubiquitous and compensating perimeter controls are sometimes depended upon to offer application security, cloud applications can be secure as long as the same security evaluation for cloud environments is performed.
Any element of technology will contain vulnerabilities, mobile or otherwise. Of course, there is no indication as to how many vulnerabilities each will likely have; however, one very rudimentary method of determining the number of likely vulnerabilities is based on the number of lines of code. In other words, the more the number of lines …
There are no ways to prevent malware attacks but there are reliable ways to detect and block attacks, thus protecting your systems from being infected by malicious software. The below mention graphs depict the growth in mobile malware. New Mobile malware While the numbers vary on the exact scale of the issue, what the two …
A malicious insider threat to an organization is a current or former employee, contractor, or other business partners who has or had authorized access to an organization’s network, system, or data and intentionally exceeded or misused that access in a manner that negatively affected the confidentiality, integrity, or availability of the organization’s information or information …
Insecure Interfaces and APIs APIs within cloud environments are used to offer end-customers software interfaces to interact with their provisioned services. There are multitudes of APIs available within a cloud environment; these can include provisioning new hardware and monitoring the cloud services, as just two examples. According to API Management Company, Mashery, there exist three …
The following list of Legal issues in cloud is a general guide designed to help you focus on some of the areas and legislative items that might impact your cloud environments: Legal issues in cloud computing are comes under the international law, International law is the term given to the rules that govern relations between …
Cloud Application Architecture It is important that we examine the mechanisms behind the scenes that make application security and software development for the cloud work, as well as the weaknesses and vulnerabilities associated with each. The readers need to understand how to evaluate and discover these for the customer. Application programming interfaces (APIs) are the …
The need for the use of Cloud encryption, cryptography and encryption is universal for the provisioning and protection of confidentiality services in the enterprise. In support of that goal, the Cloud encryption blog should ensure that he understands how to deploy and use cryptography services in a cloud environment. In addition, it’s important to integrate …
Cloud identity and access management is about the people, processes, and procedures used to create, manage, and destroy identities of all kinds, Whether you are dealing with system administrators or plain users of cloud services, the creation and management of identities are key in maintaining secure operations. IAM systems consist of several components, as shown …
Multi factor authentication schema such as the use of robust tokens and requiring multi-factor authentication can reduce the likelihood of unauthorized users gaining access, and restricting authorized users to permitted activities. Cloud Multi factor authentication has become more popular and widespread in the last five years due to increased demand for better authorization security and …
Developers often face challenges when working in a new and unfamiliar environment. that’s why the organization faces challenges with cloud application security. For instance, they may be used to working in a certain language or framework that may not be available to them on a particular platform. There is also a serious lack of documentation …
An ISMS (Internal Information Security Controls System) should exist to reduce risks related to the AIC of information and assets, while looking to strengthen the stakeholder confidence in the security posture of their organization in protecting such assets. Although these systems may well vary in terms of comprehensiveness, along with how the controls are applied, …
Cloud security operations management there are many aspects and processes of operations that need to be managed, and they often relate to each other. Cloud security operations management include the following: Information security management Configuration management Change management Incident management Problem management Release and deployment management Service-level management Availability management Capacity management Business continuity management …
ISO/IEC 27018 addresses the cloud computing privacy aspects of cloud computing for consumers. ISO 27018 is the first international set of cloud computing privacy controls in the previous blog (How many Data Privacy Acts in the world?). The ISO published ISO 27018 on July 30, 2014, as a new component of the ISO 27001 standard. …
Cloud Computing Privacy Requirements (ISO/IEC 27018) Read More »
Patch management is a crucial task. All organizations must perform and Regularly patch OSs, middleware, and applications to guard against newly found vulnerabilities or to provide additional functionality. Patch management is the process of identifying, acquiring, installing, and verifying patches for products and systems. Patches correct security and functionality problems in software and firmware. From …
Cloud Security Threats is nothing but to secure a server, it is essential to first define the threats that must be mitigated. Organizations should conduct risk assessments to identify the specific threats against their servers and determine the effectiveness of existing security controls in counteracting the threats. They then should perform risk mitigation to decide …
Securely configuring the virtualization management VM tools set is one of the most important steps when building a cloud environment. Compromising on the management VM tools may allow an attacker unlimited access to the VM, the host, and the enterprise network.Therefore, you must securely install and configure the management VM tools and then adequately monitor …
Security testing of web applications through the use of testing software is generally broken into two distinct types of automated testing tools. This section looks at these tools and discusses the importance of penetration testing, which generally includes the use of human expertise and automated tools. The section also looks at secure code reviews and …
The Secure software development life cycle in cloud computing is one of the most interesting concept. Although some view a single point-in-time vulnerability scan as an indicator of trustworthiness, much more important is a holistic evaluation of the people, processes, and technology that delivered the software and will continue to maintain it. Several software development …
Secure software development life cycle in cloud computing Read More »
Cloud Threat Modeling is performed once an application design is created. The goal of Cloud Threat Modeling is to determine any weaknesses in the application and the potential ingress, egress, and actors involved before the weakness is introduced to production. It is the overall attack surface that is amplified by the cloud, and the threat …
The cloud further heightens the need for applications to go through a software development lifecycle process Following are the phases in all software development lifecycle process models: Business and security requirements and standards are being determined. This phase is the main focus of the project managers and stakeholders. Meetings with managers, stakeholders, and users are …
Cloud Security risks its an main concept whether run in the platform as a service (PaaS) or infrastructure as a service (IaaS) deployment model, applications running in a cloud environment may enjoy the same security controls surrounding them as applications that run in a traditional data center environment. This makes the need for an application …
What are the security risks of the cloud computing? Read More »
OWASP Top 10 Vulnerabilities 2021 is nothing but an Applications run in the cloud should conform to best practice guidance and guidelines for the assessment and ongoing management of vulnerabilities. As mentioned earlier, the implementation of an application risk-management program addresses not only vulnerabilities but also all risks associated with applications. The most common software …
Security risks for cloud computing is become increases from last decade, Because information technology (IT) is typically deployed to serve the interests of the organization, the goals, and management practices in that organization are an important source of guidance to cloud risk management. From the perspective of the enterprise, cloud computing represents outsourcing, and it …
For you to understand disadvantages of cloud storage first we need to understand On a technical level, persistent mass storage in cloud computing typically consists of spinning hard disk drives or solid-state drives (SSDs). For reliability purposes, disk drives are often grouped to provide redundancy. The typical approach is the Redundant Array of Inexpensive Disks …
The Hypervisor becomes important about the compute resources of a host is the ability to manage and allocate these resources effectively, either on a per-guest operating-system (OS) basis or on a per-host basis within a resource cluster. The use of reservations, limits, and shares offers the contextual ability for an administrator to allocate the compute …
Cloud Storage Encryption is an important technology to consider and use when implementing systems that allow for secure data storage and usage from the cloud. Although having encryption enabled on all data across the enterprise architecture reduces the risks associated with unauthorized data access and exposure, there are performance constraints and concerns to be addressed. …
DRM is not just the use of standard encryption technologies to provide confidentiality for data it is much more. Here is a shortlist of some of its features and use cases: DRM adds an extra layer of access controls on top of the data object or document. The ACL determines who can open the document …
Data classification as part of the information lifecycle management (ILM) process can be defined as a tool for the categorization of data to help an organization effectively answer the following questions: What data types are available? Where is certain data located? What access levels are implemented? What protection level is implemented, and does it adhere …
DLP, also known as data leakage prevention or data loss protection, describes the controls put in place by an organization to ensure that certain types of data (structured and unstructured) remain under organizational controls, in line with policies, standards, and procedures. Controls to protect data form the foundation of organizational security and enable the organization …
Data Masking is a process that need to provide confidentiality protection for data in cloud environments is a serious concern for organizations. The ability to use encryption is not always a realistic option for various reasons including performance, cost, and technical abilities. As a result, additional mechanisms need to be employed to ensure that data …
Cloud Security Standards slogan is “If it cannot be measured, it cannot be managed“. This is a statement that any auditor and security professional should abide by regardless of his focus. How can someone have confidence, awareness, and assurances that he and the CSP are taking the correct steps to ensure that data is secured …
Cloud Security Framework System and subsystem product certification is used to evaluate the security claims made for a system and its components. Although there have been several evaluation frameworks available for use over the years, such as the Trusted Computer System Evaluation Criteria (TCSEC) developed by the United States Department of Defense, the Common Criteria …
Cloud Computing Security Considerations can be a subjective issue, viewed differently across different industries, companies, and users, based on their needs, desires, and requirements. Many of these actions and Cloud Computing Security Considerations appetites are strongly influenced by compliance and other regulatory requirements. Within IaaS, a key emphasis and focus must be placed on the …
The Open Web Application Security Project (OWASP) has provided the 10 most critical web application security threats that should serve as a minimum level for application security assessments and testing. The open web application security project (OWASP) top 10 covers the following categories: Injection Injection flaws, such as SQL, OS, and LDAP injection occur when …
Cloud Computing elements is a very important concept we need to consider before moving to the cloud environment. Below, Anything as a service (XaaS): The growing diversity of services available over the Internet via cloud computing as opposed to being provided locally or on-premises. Apache CloudStack: An open-source cloud computing and IaaS platform developed to …
Cloud Attacks Surface Essentials is the process where Cloud data centers can be perceived as similar to DMZs in legacy enterprises. Because everything in the cloud can be accessed remotely, it can be considered exposed to the Internet, to a greater or lesser extent. Instead of the discrete perimeter of a private network, cloud configurations …
The vendor offering cloud services. The CSP will own the datacenter, employ the staff, own and manage the resources (hardware and software), monitor service provision and security, and provide administrative assistance for the customer and the customer’s data and processing needs. Cloud Computing Roles & Responsibilities Examples include Amazon Web Services (AWS), Rackspace, and Microsoft’s …
Private cloud security risks. A private cloud configuration is a legacy configuration of a data center, often with distributed computing and BYOD capabilities. The organization controls the entire infrastructure (hardware, software, facilities, administrative personnel, security controls, and so on). A private cloud configuration is a legacy configuration of a data center, often with distributed computing and …
