Dark Reading is part of the Informa Tech Division of Informa PLC

This site is operated by a business or businesses owned by Informa PLC and all copyright resides with them.Informa PLC's registered office is 5 Howick Place, London SW1P 1WG. Registered in England and Wales. Number 8860726.

Database Security
Authentication
Mobile
Privacy
Compliance
Identity & Access Management
Security Monitoring
Advanced Threats
Insider Threats
Vulnerability Management
Comments
The Security of Cloud Applications
Newest First  |  Oldest First  |  Threaded View
tdsan
100%
0%
tdsan,
 User Rank: Ninja
7/14/2019 | 8:11:46 AM
Re: Citations Needed
 

This also depends on if it is SaaS, IaaS or PaaS, if the user is responsible for a lax security environment at their site, IaaS will also be lax as well (ask Accenture Federal Services and Attunity). But if SaaS is used and the vendor is responsible for the environment and application (i.e O365, SalesForce, VMware Airwatch), then there are much more stringent controls because the large cloud environments have adopted FedRAMP security practice. FedRAMP has initiated more stringent cloud aspects by looking at the systems from top down (auditing is part of the FedRAMP montra). They look at numerous areas that may not be part of onsite cybersecurity practices - continuous monitoring, application and system inventory, SIEM implementation, WAF, NGFW and hardware inventory, private key management, admin document mgmt.).

Todd
jwdtx
50%
50%
jwdtx,
 User Rank: Apprentice
7/11/2019 | 8:55:56 PM
Re: Citations Needed
Thanks for the response, Hillel. This is some of the information I desired. Whether on prem or in the cloud, it seems everyone is struggling to develop secure applications and protect their data. Being a security professional, I guess I am naturally skeptical. Cheers!
hsolow
50%
50%
hsolow,
 User Rank: Author
7/11/2019 | 7:55:36 PM
Re: Citations Needed
Hey @jwdtx,

Thanks for your feedback. 

The Magecart attacks are an interesting point, but I think that drawing conclusions about application security from the issue of S3 public bucket misconfiguration is somewhat spurious. I agree that there are specific areas like this one where better processes and defaults are needed to put these attacks behind us. Overall, however, cloud seems to still be on top. (See https://resources.infosecinstitute.com/where-is-your-data-safer-in-the-cloud-or-on-premise for example).

When it comes to my claim that serverless stands to make application security better, this is something we at Protego have spent a lot of time on. The ability to apply fine-grained IAM role decisions are the function level, for example, is an incredibly powerful tool. Yes, you need tools and automation to keep up, but if you do, you have made a huge leap forward.

Finally, you seem to have conflated DevOps with serverless. I don't contest that the move to DevOps has brought a renaissance of bad habits. In Protego we see an increase in susceptibility to SQL injection in many customers' applications, for example. But organizations do DevOps on-prem, with EC2s, and with containers, as well. The move to serverless, on the other hand, create new opportunities to do better at defending these challenges and limiting their blast radius.

Let me know if I've won you over... :-)

Hillel
jwdtx
50%
50%
jwdtx,
 User Rank: Apprentice
7/11/2019 | 1:43:30 PM
Citations Needed
The author makes a number of claims about the superiority of security in a cloud environment, but fails to provide citations with hard data. The recent Magecart attacks against 17000 AWS sites is an example of how organizations are struggling with securing cloud apps. Contrary to the author's assertion that serverless apps will improve application security, WhiteHat Security has reported that DevOps teams are producing code with more vulnerabilities than teams building "monolithic" web apps.


COVID-19: Latest Security News & Commentary
Dark Reading Staff 8/3/2020
Pen Testers Who Got Arrested Doing Their Jobs Tell All
Kelly Jackson Higgins, Executive Editor at Dark Reading,  8/5/2020
New 'Nanodegree' Program Provides Hands-On Cybersecurity Training
Nicole Ferraro, Contributing Writer,  8/3/2020
Register for Dark Reading Newsletters
White Papers
Video
Cartoon Contest
Write a Caption, Win a Starbucks Card! Click Here
Latest Comment: This comment is waiting for review by our moderators.
Current Issue
Special Report: Computing's New Normal, a Dark Reading Perspective
This special report examines how IT security organizations have adapted to the "new normal" of computing and what the long-term effects will be. Read it and get a unique set of perspectives on issues ranging from new threats & vulnerabilities as a result of remote working to how enterprise security strategy will be affected long term.
Flash Poll
The Changing Face of Threat Intelligence
The Changing Face of Threat Intelligence
This special report takes a look at how enterprises are using threat intelligence, as well as emerging best practices for integrating threat intel into security operations and incident response. Download it today!
Twitter Feed
Dark Reading - Bug Report
Bug Report
Enterprise Vulnerabilities
From DHS/US-CERT's National Vulnerability Database
CVE-2020-12441
PUBLISHED: 2020-08-06
Denial-of-Service (DoS) in Ivanti Service Manager HEAT Remote Control 7.4 due to a buffer overflow in the protocol parser of the ‘HEATRemoteService’ agent. The DoS can be triggered by sending a specially crafted network packet.
CVE-2020-13793
PUBLISHED: 2020-08-06
Unsafe storage of AD credentials in Ivanti DSM netinst 5.1 due to a static, hard-coded encryption key.
CVE-2020-16207
PUBLISHED: 2020-08-06
Advantech WebAccess HMI Designer, Versions 2.1.9.31 and prior. Multiple heap-based buffer overflow vulnerabilities may be exploited by opening specially crafted project files that may overflow the heap, which may allow remote code execution, disclosure/modification of information, or cause the appli...
CVE-2020-16211
PUBLISHED: 2020-08-06
Advantech WebAccess HMI Designer, Versions 2.1.9.31 and prior. An out-of-bounds read vulnerability may be exploited by processing specially crafted project files, which may allow an attacker to read information.
CVE-2020-16213
PUBLISHED: 2020-08-06
Advantech WebAccess HMI Designer, Versions 2.1.9.31 and prior. Processing specially crafted project files lacking proper validation of user supplied data may cause the system to write outside the intended buffer area, which may allow remote code execution, disclosure/modification of information, or ...