A secure virtualization model for cloud computing to defend against distributed denial-of service attacks

Abstract

Cloud computing is based on three principles which are distributed systems, grid computing and utility computing. It provides high performance infrastructure according usage of Virtualization to offer capabilities such as on demand self-service, pay per use, highly scalable, rapid elasticity and huge amount of resource pools through the Internet. Everything in cloud environment is used as a service. The cloud technology transformed the desktop computing into service based computing by getting advantages of using data centers and server cluster technology. Even with all advantages which could bring for both Cloud Providers and Cloud consumers still security is one of the most significant concerns in this environment such as Confidentiality, Integrity, Availability, Authenticity, and privacy. A lack of security in Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) as a fundamental delivery layer in cloud computing has an effective impact on the others delivery layers which are built on top of this layer. One of the most serious threats against the availability of cloud resources comes from Distributed Denial-of Service (DDoS) attack. This kind of attack is a large scalable and organized attack against availability of services and resources of the victim. This attack is launched by getting usage of sending tremendously large volumes of request to the target through the huge number of distributed compromised systems. The purpose of this study is to propose a new model for preventing disruption of available resources in terms of attack period. Based on previous research there is not a proper model that completely defense against DDoS attack, so the aim of this model is proposed to enhance the availability of cloud resources.