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    Top 5 Security Perils of Forcing Applications onto the Cloud

    Applications are typically built from the ground up using programming languages, such as PHP, JAVA or .NET by an internal development team or a third-party vendor with “For Internal Use Only” in mind.  There has been a general assumption by development teams that users can always be trusted, the application will be used “as intended,” and all information (i.e., user data) and content (i.e., product data from databases or ERP systems) are coming from safe and secure sources.

    As cloud computing becomes more favorable among companies, they are forcing their applications out of the internal network into the cloud, causing them to be vulnerable to Web threats.  If the application, or part of the application, is moved into the cloud, there will be typically less security within the infrastructure and several more users will be accessing it.  Therefore, vulnerabilities turn up and hacks occur.  The following are typical challenges enterprises face when moving an application to the cloud, prepared by security vendor Art of Defence.

    Top 5 Security Perils of Forcing Applications onto the Cloud - slide 1

    Click through to learn more about the risks of moving traditional apps to the cloud.

    Top 5 Security Perils of Forcing Applications onto the Cloud - slide 2

    Internally, the application had only trusted users. Often, internal authentication services, such as LDAP and Microsoft Active Directory, are based on protected internal databases and used for secure user access and logging of user traffic.Challenge: If there has not yet been any user management, solid and secure user management has to be developed and used ‘on the cloud.’ If the application continues using the current authentication services, the challenge is whether the user’s credentials should be ‘replicated’ and made available on the cloud – if so, how can this be done in a secure way? Or should the user access management on the cloud ask in a secure way (i.e., through a VPN tunnel) the internal authentication databases? Therefore, the user’s credential database does not leave the secure enterprise infrastructure, but the communication with it has to be secure.

    Top 5 Security Perils of Forcing Applications onto the Cloud - slide 3

    Internally, the application had only trusted users who used the application ‘as intended,’ and there was not a strong need to validate user input, i.e., in form fields of the application.Challenge: There is a variety of typical Web application vulnerabilities that target weak input validation, including all classes of injection attacks, more commonly SQL injection. If the application moves ‘to the cloud,’ all input parameters of the application need to be validated. This could either be implemented within the application itself or in front of the application in a so-called Web application firewall.

    Top 5 Security Perils of Forcing Applications onto the Cloud - slide 4

    Internally, the application had only trusted users, and all communication was trusted in the sense that all other users were ‘no security risk.”Challenge: There is a variety of typical Web application vulnerabilities that target communication problems, for example, insecure implementations of session management (i.e., insecure session cookies), improper use of encrypted communication (i.e., SSL, key management). If the application moves to the cloud, all relevant aspects of the communication have to be evaluated. Implementation of secure communication channels has to be done the right way. This could either be implemented within the application itself by using secure frameworks or in front of the application in a so-called Web application firewall.

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    As internal users were trusted, the application had not been exposed to such things like security source code reviews or security vulnerability tests in general.Challenges: The challenges mentioned up until now are common issues noted by the OWASP Top 10. There are more very likely vulnerabilities to make the list, such as Cross Site Scripting, and many more that have not made the OWASP Top 10 yet. Regular source code audits/vulnerability assessments and the use of embedded or external WAFs can prevent these vulnerabilities.

    Top 5 Security Perils of Forcing Applications onto the Cloud - slide 6

    Internally, the application had secure access to authentication databases and content databases, such as product data management systems and ERP systems.Challenge: As these systems typically contain confidential content, careful decisions have to be made about the data – which parts should be moved to the cloud and in what form, or can the whole database live on the cloud without risk? Oftentimes, new and securely implemented login/access procedures are needed.

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