A Platform for Security Monitoring of Multi-cloud Applications

Abstract

This paper presents a security assurance platform to monitor and control the security in the context of multi-cloud applications. Indeed, this property is a crucial issue in multi cloud-based environments where many aspects need to be faced, including risk management, data privacy and isolation, security-by-design applications, and vulnerability scans. Moreover, it also becomes necessary to have an efficient system that interrelates and operates all security controls that are configured and executed independently on each component of the system.

In addition, as new attacks emerge every day, threat detection systems play a fundamental role in security monitoring schemes, identifying possible attacks. These systems handle an enormous volume of data, as they detect unknown malware by monitoring different activities from different points of observation, as well as adapting to new attack strategies and considering techniques to detect malicious behaviors and react accordingly.

In this paper, we describe a monitoring platform for securing multi-cloud applications, from a Service Level Agreement perspective. Moreover, we present a case study depicting the multi-cloud monitoring of a smart-city transport application for the citizens of Tampere, Finland. Considering the nature of the application under study, the service requires continuous execution and availability functionalities, as end-users may utilize the service at any time.