Multi-tenant Security Context Sealing via Trusted Service Mediation
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Solution Overview
Problem
In multi-tenant computational environments, securing sensitive data and preventing unauthorized access are challenging due to scalability issues and the risk of security breaches, especially when implementing isolation measures that can lead to higher operational costs and undetectable data access vulnerabilities.
Innovation Solution
A security framework is implemented within a shared application platform that seals and unseals security context data using protection layers, restricting access to authorized components only, and employs a trusted service to manage access rights, ensuring that only trusted devices can unseal sensitive data, thereby preventing unauthorized access.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If isolation measures are implemented to secure sensitive data in multi-tenant environments, then security reliability is improved, but operational costs increase and device complexity increases
Solution Approach 1:
A trusted service acts as an intermediary between untrusted tenant applications and security context data. The trusted service receives requests from untrusted applications, validates them against security policies, and provides access to security context data only when appropriate. This mediator approach maintains security reliability while avoiding the need for complex isolation infrastructure.
Solution Approach 2:
The security context data is extracted and sealed in a protected format that can be selectively unsealed by the trusted service. Instead of isolating entire application environments, only the critical security context is extracted and protected, reducing the complexity of isolation measures while maintaining security reliability.
2Reliability
If protection layers are added to restrict access to security context data, then security reliability is improved, but device complexity increases
Solution Approach 1:
Security context data is sealed within protection layers that contain embedded security policies and access controls. The sealed data structure nests multiple layers of protection, with each layer verifying specific aspects of the request. This nested approach provides robust security while keeping the implementation logic centralized in the trusted service.
3Ease of operation
If untrusted resources are allowed to access security context data, then ease of operation is improved, but security reliability deteriorates
Solution Approach 1:
The trusted service implements a feedback mechanism where requests from untrusted applications are evaluated against security policies, and access decisions are communicated back. The service continuously monitors access patterns and can adjust security decisions based on the evaluation results, maintaining both ease of operation for legitimate requests and security reliability by blocking malicious ones.
Data Source
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AI summary
Examples of the present disclosure describe security context enforcement in a multi-tenant environment. Security context data may be transmitted through an un-secure multi-tenant computational environment. The security context data is secured by protection layers that restrict untrusted resources from running tenant applications and restrict the ability of unauthorized tenants to access context information associated with a tenant. Data may be received and evaluated at a component of a multi-tenant environment. If the component is a trusted component and the security context data indicates that the tenant is authorized to execute an application using a specified context, the component may run a tenant application in a context associated with the security context data.