Misuse patterns for cloud computing

TL;DR: In this article, a misuse pattern describes how an information misuse is performed from the point of view of the attacker, it defines the environment where the attack was performed, how the attack is performed, countermeasures to stop it, and how to find forensic information to trace the attack once it happens.

Abstract: Cloud Computing is a new computing structure that allows providers to deliver services on demand by means of virtualization. We are studying some security attacks in cloud computing by describing them in the form of misuse patterns. A misuse pattern describes how an information misuse is performed from the point of view of the attacker. It defines the environment where the attack is performed, how the attack is performed, countermeasures to stop it, and how to find forensic information to trace the attack once it happens. We are building a catalog of misuse patterns and we present here two of them: Resource Usage Monitoring (complete) and Malicious Virtual Machine Creation (partially). We discuss also the value of having such a catalog.