Security-Aware Virtual Machine Allocation in the Cloud: A Game Theoretic Approach

Abstract

With the growth of cloud computing, many businesses, both small and large, are opting to use cloud services compelled by a great cost savings potential. This is especially true of public cloud computing which allows for quick, dynamic scalability without many overhead or long-term commitments. However, one of the largest dissuasions from using cloud services comes from the inherent and unknown danger of a shared platform such as the hypervisor. An attacker can attack a virtual machine (VM) and then go on to compromise the hypervisor. If successful, then all virtual machines on that hypervisor can become compromised. This is the problem of negative externalities, where the security of one player affects the security of another. This work shows that there are multiple Nash equilibria for the public cloud security game. It also demonstrates that we can allow the players' Nash equilibrium profile to not be dependent on the probability that the hypervisor is compromised, reducing the factor externality plays in calculating the equilibrium. Finally, by using our allocation method, the negative externality imposed onto other players can be brought to a minimum compared to other common VM allocation methods.

Cyber-Threats Information Sharing in Cloud Computing: A Game Theoretic Approach

“…However, this equilibrium strategy should be avoided due to the possibility of exploitation of a user's investment for bug discovery and sharing by another user, which is also termed as free-riding on another firm's efforts. Therefore, the strategy profile (IS; IS) can be the only NE in this scenario, only when either condition (10) or (11) does not hold true. Proof 2 (c): This proposition can be proved in the similar manner as the proposition 1(a) proved earlier.…”

“…Moreover, different public cloud users share a common platform such as the hypervisor. A common platform intensifies the well-known problem of cybersecurity interdependency [7], [8], [9], [10] as an attacker who gains access to the hypervisor can start, stop, and modify all of the VMs that are housed on that hypervisor. The result is a more challenging execution environment due to the risk aggregation from many users sharing the same platform.…”

Cloud Workload Allocation Approaches for Quality of Service Guarantee and Cybersecurity Risk Management

“…Maintaining excessive computing resources cannot adequately guarantee the QoS conditions for cloud users as it can lead to tremendously high power consumption and low resource utilization [47]. Besides, allowing several applications, VMs, and users to commonly share a pool of cloud resources brings about many cybersecurity risks, such as the side-channel attacks [51,52], and the VM-to-VM IC risks [33,55].…”

“…In the VM-to-VM IC attacks, an attacker can compromise the hypervisor after a successful attack on one of its vulnerable VMs [33,55]. He/she consequently can compromise all other coexisted secure VMs on that hypervisor.…”

“…We Server sharing results in challenging security threats, such as the side-channel attacks [51,52], and the IC risks [33,55]. In the side-channel attacks, an attacker can build different kinds of side channels to extract private information about the victim's VM (e.g., the victim's workload, traffic rate [52], cryptographic keys [51], etc.,) that eventually enables him/her to launch a successful attack.…”