Title: A hybrid security model for virtual machines in cloud environment

Authors: Zhaogang Shu; Xiangmin Ji; Yaohua Lin

Addresses: College of Computer and Information, Fujian Agriculture and Forestry University, Fuzhou, 350002, China ' College of Computer and Information, Fujian Agriculture and Forestry University, Fuzhou, 350002, China ' College of Computer and Information, Fujian Agriculture and Forestry University, Fuzhou, 350002, China

Abstract: In cloud environment, the communication between virtual machines (VMs) residing on the same physical system is inevitable, which brings convenience for malicious software to attack other VMs through the communication channels between VMs. In order to reduce the security risk of the VMs in cloud environment, a novel hybrid security model (HSMVM) is presented, which combines the features of confidentiality, integrality, and organisation isolation of generic security model. The limitations and the advantages of the existing security models are thoroughly analysed in this paper. Afterwards, the basic definitions of HSMVM, judgment method for the system security state, and the state transformation rules are described in detail. The prototype system of HSMVM is developed and tested on Xen system. Experimental results indicate that the security model can effectively prevent the attacks between the VMs with reasonably low resource utilisation.

Keywords: security model; access control; virtual machine; cloud computing.

DOI: 10.1504/IJAACS.2017.084714

International Journal of Autonomous and Adaptive Communications Systems, 2017 Vol.10 No.2, pp.236 - 246

Received: 12 Apr 2014
Accepted: 28 Jul 2014
Published online: 22 Jun 2017 *

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