Threatening the Cloud: Securing Services and Data by Continuous, Model-Driven Negative Security Testing

Today’s increasing trend towards outsourcing IT landscapes and business processes into the Cloud is a double-edged sword. On the one side, companies can save time and money; however, on the other side, moving possible sensitive data and business processes into the Cloud demands for a high degree of information security. In the course of this chapter, the authors give an overview of a Cloud’s various vulnerabilities, how to address them properly, and last but not least, a model-driven approach to evaluate the state of security of a Cloud environment by means of negative testing. Besides, the authors incorporate the idea of living models to allow tracking and incorporating of changes in the Cloud environment and react properly and, more important, in time on evolving security requirements throughout the complete Cloud Life Cycle.