A Pattern-Based and Tool-Supported Risk Analysis Method Compliant to ISO 27001 for Cloud Systems

To benefit from cloud computing and the advantages it offers, obstacles regarding the usage and acceptance of clouds have to be cleared. For cloud providers, one way to obtain customers’ confidence is to establish security mechanisms when using clouds. The ISO 27001 standard provides general concepts for establishing information security in an organization. Risk analysis is an essential part in the ISO 27001 standard for achieving information security. This standard, however, contains ambiguous descriptions. In addition, it does not stipulate any method to identify assets, threats, and vulnerabilities. In this paper, the authors present a method for cloud computing systems to perform risk analysis according to the ISO 27001. The authors’ structured method is tailored to SMEs. It relies upon patterns to describe context and structure of a cloud computing system, elicit security requirements, identify threats, and select controls, which ease the effort for these activities. The authors’ method guides companies through the process of risk analysis in a structured manner. Furthermore, the authors provide a model-based tool for supporting the ISO 27001 standard certification. The authors’ tool consists of various plug-ins for conducting different steps of their method. Azadeh Alebrahim University of Duisburg-Essen, Germany Denis Hatebur University of Duisburg-Essen, Germany Stephan Fassbender University of Duisburg-Essen, Germany Ludger Goeke ITESYS Inst. f. tech. Sys. GmbH, Germany Isabelle Côté ITESYS Inst. f. tech. Sys. GmbH, Germany