Federated Cloud Security Architecture for Secure and Agile Clouds

Cyber threats against clouds have evolved rapidly. Traditional reactive cyber defense technologies are not effective and sufficient to protect federated clouds. This chapter introduces the novel federated cloud security architecture that includes proactive cloud defense technologies for secure and agile cloud development. The federated security architecture consists of a set of seamlessly integrated systematic security mechanisms at the application layer, the network layer and the system layer in federated cloud computing environments. Features of the architecture include: (1) it is centered on proactive cyber defense; (2) it facilitates to detect early warning cyber attacks against at one layer and deploy early warning signs of attacks to other layers for countermeasures; (3) it uses command and control (C2) to coordinate both in-cloud and cross-cloud defense activities via federated cloud security centers.