To combine all the security aspects of cloud security and
enable auditing and controlling of their fulfillment, a new,
“information security governance driven” solution is
needed.
IV. AN INFORMATION SECURITY GOVERNANCE DRIVEN
CLOUD BROKERAGE MODEL
In this section, we present our initial IS governance
driven cloud brokerage model as a new trusted security
entity solution for cloud marketplaces.
To start with, we examine the main features of the
established stock exchange brokerage model [31] and use
them to identify initial requirements on our IS governance
driven cloud broker and its functionality, which we define
as follows:
1) The IS governance driven cloud broker (ISGDCB)
brings cloud providers together and facilitates a secure
collaboration between them;
2) The ISGDCB should include a full range of services
necessary to cover the information security governance
process - risk assessments, risk analysis, negotiations of
security protection level agreements (SPLA), auditing and
controlling of their fulfillment;
3) The IS governance process should be dynamic and
with a low latency;
4) Any bilateral communication between cloud
providers should be avoided, it should take place only via
the ISGDCB;
5) The ISGDCB must be cloud provider independent, to
avoid the so-called vendor lock-in effect;
6) The ISGDCB should be applicable for the
“Everything as a Service” model.
On the basis of the described requirements, we suggest
our IS governance driven cloud brokerage model, which
consists of four modules: Pre-Governance, Collaboration,
Governance, and Post-Governance.
A. Module 1 - Pre-Governance
In this module, the ISGDCB defines a secure framework
for a regulated collaboration between cloud providers. Three
approaches can be used here:
Approach 1 – ISGDCB creates and provides a risk
assessment for cloud providers to classify their security
level and criticality. This risk assessment must include all
critical areas of cloud collaborations (legal and risk aspects,
data protection policies, regulator’s requirements for special
countries and industries, etc.) [12]. The results of risk
assessments in the form of cloud provider’s labeling are
then stored in the assessment database (AD) and used in the
Module 2. The cloud providers’ labeling must be sufficient
and up-to-date to make a proper provider selection for a
potential collaboration. Recent research work shows that
cloud provider labeling based on risk assessment results is
very time-consuming and often very subjective, as security
controls and security attributes are qualitative (and not
quantitative) in their nature [10]. Therefore, we suggest
Approach 2 to optimize this process step.