Cloud Computing Security - Authentication and Authorization Overview

Cloud Computing Services like Amazon’s EC2 Service or Google's AppEngine are growing more and more attractive for companies. The appeal mostly is based on their dynamically available and scalable infrastructure. The vast theme, mainly influencing the acceptance of Cloud Computing, is Security. Severe security concerns for business critical data transferred to the Cloud mainly refer to areas like integrity and privacy. For these areas CORISECIO provides solutions for Cloud Computing Security based on their Open Source Security platform secRT.

Authentication & Authorization Service

CORISECIO has implemented Security Services for authentication and authorization in the Open Source project INS (Identity Network Service). At accessing the Cloud a user may be authorized for working in the Cloud via an authentication service. Additionally appropriate rights are allocated to him by an authorization service. This authorization is done via existing meta directories.

For the authentication SAML (Security Assertion Markup Language) is supported by an increasing number of Cloud Service providers. The INS service generates SAML token containing the successful authentication as well as the appropriate rights. Then this SAML Token is sent to the Cloud provider via the internet. <