An In-VM Measuring Framework for Increasing Virtual Machine Security in Clouds

Cloud computing relies heavily on virtualization. Virtualization technology has developed rapidly because of the rapid decrease in hardware cost and concurrent increase in hardware computing power. A virtual machine monitor (VMM, also called a hγpervisor) between the hardware and the OS enables multiple virtual machines (VMs) to run on top of a single physical machine. The VMM manages scheduling and dispatching the physical resources to the individual VMs as needed, and the VMs appear to users as separate computers. Widely used virtualization technologies include VMWare, Xen, Denali, and the Kernel-Based Virtual Machine (KVM). In this framework, a module measures executables running in virtual machines (VMs) and transfers the values to a trusted VM. Comparing those values to a reference table containing the trusted measurement values of running executables verifies the executable/s status.