Effectively auditing IaaS cloud servers

Abstract

Cloud computing is broadly recognized as one of major factors in achieving more flexible, scalable, and efficient systems. However, as customers lose the direct control of their data and applications hosted by cloud providers, the trustworthiness of cloud services is a main issue that hinders the deployment of cloud applications. In this paper, we have developed a novel framework to detect compromises on physical servers in cloud services, via remote attestation with a Trusted Third Party (TTP). Furthermore, to avoid the TTP becoming a bottleneck, we have designed a cloud based TTP platform, using a small private cloud to audit large clouds. We have implemented a prototype system, and evaluated it with several common benchmarks to demonstrate its efficiency. Our experimental results show that the proposed framework is effective in detecting compromise and adds little overhead to a common IaaS cloud environment.