Chapter 15 – Cloud Security

Throughout this book, we touched in many areas that were related to cloud computing. Many features that were explained in this book could be leveraged in a cloud environment. This is particularly true in Chapter 6 when we discussed the aspects of Virtualization Security. However, cloud security transcends technology (as most of the technologies to be honest). When companies are planning to move their business to cloud computing, it is definitely not only about the technology but also about lowering capital cost, taking advantage of the management and control that is available in cloud, and also leveraging the cloud provider infrastructure for their business. There are many other aspects related to cloud security that must be considered before moving the business to this model. This chapter will not go over the core cloud computing essentials; therefore, we strongly advise you to read the NIST definition of cloud computing1 before start reading this chapter. It is crucial that you are familiar with the terms that will be used in this chapter in order to understand the general considerations for a cloud security in a Software as a Service (SaaS) and Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) environment. The chapter will also explain how to build cloud infrastructure using Windows Server 2012 in an automation manner and reducing attack surface by using Server Core.