Paradigms for virtualization based host security

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Abstract/Contents

Abstract
Virtualization has been one of the most potent forces reshaping the landscape of systems software in the last 10 years and has become ubiquitous in the realm of enterprise compute infrastructure and in the emerging field of cloud computing. This presents a variety of new opportunities when designing host based security architectures. We present several paradigms for enhancing host security leveraging the new capabilities afforded by virtualization. First, we present a virtualization based approach to trusted computing. This allows multiple virtual hosts with different assurance levels to run concurrently on the same platform using a novel "open box" and "closed box" model that allows the virtualized platform to present the best properties of traditional open and closed platforms on a single physical platform. Next, we present virtual machine introspection, an approach to enhancing the attack resistance intrusion detection and prevention systems by moving them "out of the box" i.e. out of the virtual host they are monitoring and into a seperate protection domain where they can inspect the host they are monitoring from a more protected vantage point. Finally, we present overshadow data protection, an approach for providing a last line of defense for application data even if the guest OS running an application has been compromised. We accomplish this by presenting two views of virtual memory, an encrypted view to the operating system and a plain text view to the application the owning that memory. This approach more generally illustrates the mechanisms necessary to introduce new orthogonal protection mechanisms into a Guest Operating system from the virtualization layer while maintaining backwards compatibility with existing operating systems and applications.

Description

Type of resource text
Form electronic; electronic resource; remote
Extent 1 online resource.
Publication date 2010
Issuance monographic
Language English

Creators/Contributors

Associated with Garfinkel, Tal Simeon
Associated with Stanford University, Computer Science Department
Primary advisor Rosenblum, Mendel
Thesis advisor Rosenblum, Mendel
Thesis advisor Boneh, Dan, 1969-
Thesis advisor Mitchell, John
Advisor Boneh, Dan, 1969-
Advisor Mitchell, John

Subjects

Genre Theses

Bibliographic information

Statement of responsibility Tal Garfinkel.
Note Submitted to the Department of Computer Science.
Thesis Ph.D. Stanford University 2010
Location electronic resource

Access conditions

Copyright
© 2010 by Tal Simeon Garfinkel
License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial 3.0 Unported license (CC BY-NC).

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