CertiCloud and JShadObf. Towards Integrity and Software Protection in Cloud Computing Platforms

Doctoral thesis (2013)

A simple concept that has emerged out of the notion of heterogeneous distributed computing is that of Cloud Computing (CC) where customers do not own any part of the infrastructure; they simply use the ... [more ▼]

A simple concept that has emerged out of the notion of heterogeneous distributed computing is that of Cloud Computing (CC) where customers do not own any part of the infrastructure; they simply use the available services and pay for what they use. This approach is often viewed as the next ICT revolution, similar to the birth of the Web or the e-commerce. Indeed, since its advent in the middle of the 2000's, the CC paradigm arouse enthusiasm and interest from the industry and the private sector, probably because it formalizes a concept that reduces computing cost at a time where computing power is key to reach competitiveness. Despite the initiative of several major vendors to propose CC services (Amazon, Google, Microsoft etc.), several security research questions remain open to transform the current euphoria into a wide acceptance. Moreover, these questions are not always tackled from the user's point of view. In this context, the purpose of this thesis is to investigate and design novel mechanisms to cover the following domains: - Integrity and confidentiality of Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) infrastructures, to provide guarantees on programs and data running in a virtualised environment, either before, during or after a deployment on the CC platform. - Software protection on Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) and Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) architectures, using code obfuscation techniques. This dissertation details thus two main contributions. The first one is the development and implementation of CertiCloud, a CC framework which relies on the concepts developed in the Trusted Computing Group (TCG) together with hardware elements, i.e., Trusted Platform Module (TPM) to offer a secured and reassuring environment within IaaS platforms. At the heart of CertiCloud reside two protocols: TCRR and VerifyMyVM. When the first one asserts the integrity of a remote resource and permits to exchange a private symmetric key, the second authorizes the user to detect trustfully and on demand any tampering attempt on its running VM. These protocols being key components in the proposed framework, their analysis against known cryptanalytic attacks has been deeply analysed and testified by their successful validation by AVISPA [1] and Scyther [66], two reference tools for the automatic verification of security protocols. The second major contribution proposed in this manuscript is an obfuscation framework named JShadObf, designed to improve the protection of Javascript-based software running typically on SaaS and PaaS platforms. This framework combines obfuscation transformations, code complexity measurements and Multi-Objective Evolutionary Algorithms (MOEAs) to protect Javascript code, the most ubiquitous programming language at the heart of most modern web services deployed over those CC infrastructures such as Google Office Apps, Dropbox or Doodle. [less ▲]

Optimisation d'obfuscation de code source au moyen d'algorithmes évolutionnaires multi-objectifs

Poster (2013)

JShadObf: A JavaScript Obfuscator Based on Multi-Objective Optimization Algorithms

in Lopez, Javier; Huang, Xinyi; Sandhu, Ravi (Eds.) Network and System Security (2013)

CertiCloud: a Novel TPM-based Approach to Ensure Cloud IaaS Security

in 4th IEEE Intl. Conf. on Cloud Computing (CLOUD 2011) (2011, July)

The security issues raised by the Cloud paradigm are not always tackled from the user point of view. For instance, considering an Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) Cloud, it is currently impossible for a ... [more ▼]

The security issues raised by the Cloud paradigm are not always tackled from the user point of view. For instance, considering an Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) Cloud, it is currently impossible for a user to certify in a reliable and secure way that the environment he deployed (typically a Virtual Machine(VM)) has not been corrupted, whether by malicious acts or not. Yet having this functionality would enhance the confidence on the IaaS provider and therefore attract new customers. This paper fills this need by proposing CERTICLOUD, a novel approach for the protection of IaaS platforms that relies on the concepts developed in the Trusted Computing Group (TCG) together with hardware elements, i.e., Trusted Platform Module (TPM) to offer a secured and reassuring environment. Those aspects are guaranteed by two protocols: TCRR and Verify MyVM. When the first one asserts the integrity of a remote resource and permits to exchange a private symmetric key, the second authorizes the user to detect trustfully and on demand any tampering attempt on its running VM. These protocols being key components in the proposed framework, we take very seriously their analysis against known cryptanalytic attacks. This is testified by their successful validation by AVISPA and Scyther, two reference tools for the automatic verification of security protocols. The CERTICLOUD proposal is then detailed: relying on the above protocols, this platform provides the secure storage of users environments and their safe deployment onto a virtualization framework. While the physical resources are checked by TCRR, the user can execute on demand the Verify MyVM protocol to certify the integrity of its deployed environment. Experimental results operated on a first prototype of CERTICLOUD demonstrate the feasibility and the low overhead of the approach, together with its easy implementation on recent commodity machines. [less ▲]

A Signature Scheme for Distributed Executions based on Control flow Analysis.

in Proc. of the 19th Intl. conference on Security and Intelligent Information Systems (SIIS 2011) (2011)

TPM-based Approaches to Improve Cloud Security

Presentation (2011)

CertiCloud: une plate-forme Cloud IaaS sécurisée

in RenPar'20 2011 (2011)

La sécurité des Clouds est un aspect essentiel qui n'est pas forcément abordé selon le point de vue de l'utilisateur. En particulier, sur une plate-forme de type IaaS, il est actuellement impossible pour ... [more ▼]

La sécurité des Clouds est un aspect essentiel qui n'est pas forcément abordé selon le point de vue de l'utilisateur. En particulier, sur une plate-forme de type IaaS, il est actuellement impossible pour un utilisateur de certifier de manière fiable et sécurisée que l'environnement qu'il a déployé (typiquement sous forme d'une machine virtuelle) est toujours dans un état qu'il juge intègre et opérationnel. Cet article s'attelle à cette tâche en proposant CertiCloud, une plate-forme Cloud de type IaaS qui exploite les concepts développés dans le cadre du TCG mais aussi les éléments matériels que sont les TPM pour offrir à l'utilisateur un environnement sécurisé et sécurisant. Ces deux aspects sont garantis par les deux protocoles TCRR et VerifMyVM qui sont à la base de CertiCloud. Quand le premier permet de certifier l'intégrité d'une machine distante et d'échanger une clef de chiffrement symétrique, le second permet à l'utilisateur de s'assurer dynamiquement et à la demande de l'intégrité de sa machine virtuelle exécutée sur les ressources de \CertiC. Ces deux protocoles étant les briques de base de notre plate-forme, une attention toute particulière a été apportée à leurs élaborations. A cet effet, ils ont été validés avec succès par AVISPA et Scyther, deux outils de référence dans le domaine de la vérification automatique des protocoles de sécurité (cette analyse est présentée dans cet article). Ensuite, la plate-forme CertiCloud est détaillée: outre les protocoles TCRR et VerifMyVM, elle propose le stockage sécurisé des environnements utilisateurs et leurs exécutions à travers un framework de virtualisation reprenant l'hyperviseur Xen. Quand les ressources physiques sont certifiées par TCRR, l'utilisateur peut utiliser à la demande le protocole VerifMyVM pour s'assurer de l'intégrité de son environnement déployé. Un prototype de CertiCloud a été réalisé et nous présentons les premiers résultats expérimentaux qui démontrent de la faisabilité et du faible surcoût de notre approche sur des scénarios classiquement rencontrés sur les infrastructures Cloud de type IaaS. [less ▲]