openstack-manuals/doc/security-guide/ch061_compliance-overview.xml
Andreas Jaeger 2dad59797d Security guide editorial edits
No textual changes, just markup and style, mainly:
* Add missing <filename> markup
* Change capitalization
* Wrap some overly long lines
* Remove extra whitespace before ":"
* Replace "--" with emdash

Change-Id: I9126a91c5d1f78feacb10c639b26f37fc6815a99
Partial-Bug: #1217503
2014-05-09 15:16:00 +02:00

103 lines
4.9 KiB
XML

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<chapter xmlns:xi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XInclude"
xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"
xmlns="http://docbook.org/ns/docbook"
version="5.0"
xml:id="ch061_compliance-overview">
<?dbhtml stop-chunking?>
<title>Compliance overview</title>
<para>An OpenStack deployment may require compliance activities for many purposes, such as regulatory and legal requirements, customer need, privacy considerations, and security best practices. Compliance, when done correctly, unifies and strengthens the other security topics discussed in this guide. This chapter has several objectives:</para>
<itemizedlist><listitem>
<para>Review common security principles.</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>Discuss common control frameworks and certification resources to achieve industry certifications or regulator attestations.</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>Act as a reference for auditors when evaluating OpenStack deployments.</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>Introduce privacy considerations specific to OpenStack and cloud environments.</para>
</listitem>
</itemizedlist>
<section xml:id="ch061_compliance-overview-idp48672">
<title>Security principles</title>
<para>Industry standard security principles provide a baseline
for compliance certifications and attestations. If these
principles are considered and referenced throughout an OpenStack
deployment, certification activities may be simplified.</para>
<variablelist>
<varlistentry><term>Layered defenses</term>
<listitem>
<para>
Identify where risks exist in a cloud architecture and
apply controls to mitigate the risks. In areas of
significant concern, layered defences provide multiple
complementary controls to further mitigate risk. For
example, to ensure adequate isolation between cloud
tenants, we recommend hardening QEMU, using a hypervisor
with SELinux support, enforcing mandatory access control
policies, and reducing the overall attack surface. The
foundational principle is to harden an area of concern
with multiple layers of defense such that if any one
layer is compromised, other layers will exist to offer
protection and minimize exposure.</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry><term>Fail securely</term>
<listitem>
<para>
In the case of failure, systems should be configured to
fail into a closed secure state. For example, SSL
certificate verification should fail closed by severing
the network connection if the CNAME doesn't match the
server's DNS name. Software often fails open in this
situation, allowing the connection to proceed without a
CNAME match, which is less secure and not
recommended.</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry><term>Least privilege</term>
<listitem>
<para>
Only the minimum level of access for users and system
services is granted. This access is based upon role,
responsibility and job function. This security principal
of least privilege is written into several international
government security policies, such as NIST 800-53
Section AC-6 within the United States.</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry><term>Compartmentalize</term>
<listitem>
<para>
Systems should be segregated in a such way that if one
machine, or system-level service, is compromised the
security of the other systems will remain
intact. Practically, the enablement and proper usage of
SELinux helps accomplish this goal.</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry>
<term>Promote privacy</term>
<listitem>
<para>
The amount of information that can be gathered about a
system and its users should be minimized.</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry>
<term>Logging capability</term>
<listitem>
<para>
Appropriate logging is implemented to monitor for
unauthorized use, incident response and forensics. It is
highly recommended that selected audit subsystems be
Common Criteria certified, which provides non-attestable
event records in most countries.</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
</variablelist>
</section>
</chapter>