Auto-Containment Security Breach Multi-Tenant Cloud
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Solution Overview
Problem
Public multi-tenant cloud environments face challenges with security breach detection and remediation due to high attack surfaces, compliance issues, data separation, network isolation, misconfiguration, and weak logical security, leading to data cross-contamination and disruptions.
Innovation Solution
A method and system for security breach auto-containment and auto-remediation in a multi-tenant cloud environment, which identifies compromised tenants, stores snapshots, mitigates breaches by freezing or deleting affected tenants, and migrates unaffected tenants to a sandbox for verification before reintegration into a new cloud container, ensuring business continuity and minimizing disruptions.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If complete system isolation is performed to contain security breaches, then data integrity and security are improved, but service disruption and business continuity are worsened
Solution Approach 1:
The system segments the cloud environment into isolated tenant containers, each with its own virtual machine instances. When a breach is detected, only the compromised container is isolated while other containers continue operating normally. This selective segmentation allows data integrity protection without complete system shutdown, resolving the contradiction between security isolation and service continuity.
Solution Approach 2:
The system extracts and isolates only the compromised virtual machine instances from the affected tenant container, rather than isolating the entire cloud infrastructure. The compromised instances are moved to a quarantine zone while preserving the operational status of unaffected instances and other tenants' services, thereby maintaining productivity while ensuring data integrity.
2Reliability
If tenant data and systems are isolated to prevent data cross-contamination, then security and privacy are improved, but system complexity and operational difficulty are worsened
Solution Approach 1:
The system creates isolated virtual container copies for each tenant, complete with their own virtual machine instances and data. These containers replicate the tenant's entire environment in a secure, isolated manner, enabling data separation without complex manual configuration. The copying mechanism automatically preserves tenant data and system state while maintaining security isolation.
Solution Approach 2:
The virtual container platform provides universal isolation mechanisms that work across all tenant types and workloads. A single unified system handles data separation, security isolation, and operational management for diverse tenants simultaneously, reducing overall system complexity compared to multiple specialized isolation systems.
3Loss of time
If automatic containment and remediation actions are implemented, then response time and security are improved, but automation complexity and system overhead are worsened
Solution Approach 1:
The system implements self-service automation where the cloud platform automatically detects security breaches, identifies affected tenants and instances, executes containment actions, and performs remediation without requiring manual security operations. The system monitors itself and responds autonomously to security events, reducing response time while the modular automation framework keeps complexity manageable.
Solution Approach 2:
The system continuously monitors tenant activities and security events, providing real-time feedback that triggers automatic containment and remediation actions. This feedback loop enables rapid response to security breaches while the pre-defined automated response protocols simplify the complexity of handling security incidents at scale.
Data Source
AI summary
One embodiment of the invention provides a method comprising identifying a tenant compromised by a security breach in a multi-tenant cloud environment including at least one virtual machine (VM), and storing at least one snapshot of the at least one VM. The method further comprises automatically performing containment of the security breach by mitigating the tenant compromised by the security breach. The method further comprises automatically performing remediation of at least one salvageable image in the environment by migrating one or more other tenants not yet compromised by the security breach in the environment to a sandbox, verifying the one or more other tenants are not compromised by the security breach by testing the one or more other tenants in the sandbox for a probationary period, and migrating the one or more other tenants to a new cloud container in production environment in response to the verifying.