Security is too often discussed in terms of what it prevents rather than what it assures. Too much trust in narrowly focused technology, combined with too much fear of the unknown in areas like adoption of the cloud, combine to make many enterprise and other IT systems unnecessarily expensive and inadequately trustworthy.

1. What is “Secure”?
“If you think cryptography can solve your problem, then you
don't understand your problem and you don't understand
cryptography.” – Bruce Schneier, 1998

2. The Nouns and Verbs of Security
 Preserve integrity, availability & access
 Permit authentication and authorization
 Assure confidentiality & control
 Promote awareness and accountability
 Perform inspection; maintain protection;
afford detection; enable reaction; build on
reflection

3. The Nouns and Verbs of Security
 Preserve integrity, availability & access
 Permit authentication and authorization
 Assure confidentiality & control
 Promote awareness and accountability
 Perform inspection; maintain protection;
afford detection; enable reaction; build on
reflection

4. The Nouns and Verbs of Security
 If all you want is data protection, put it on
tape and store it in a Kansas cavern
 The point of security is to maximize the
risk-adjusted value of the asset: money in
a bank, not under a mattress
 Infosec is therefore a process, not a
product; a mode of travel, not a destination

5. “Secure” against what?

6. “Who” Matters So Much More than “Where”
"There are five common factors that lead
to the compromise of database
information":
• ignorance
• poor password management
• rampant account sharing
• unfettered access to data
• excessive portability of data
DarkReading.com, October 2009

7. Clouds Can Be
Usefully Secure

8. Single-Tenant vs. Multi-Tenant Clouds
In a multi-tenant environment, all
applications run under a common trust
model: more manageable, more consistent,
more subject to rigorous scrutiny by trained
specialists (internal & customer)
Shared infrastructure
Other apps
Single tenancy entails creation of multiple
software stacks, whether real or virtual:
each layer in each stack represents a
distinct opportunity for misconfiguration or
other sources of security risk
Server
OS
Database
App Server
Storage
Network
App 1
Server
OS
Database
App Server
Storage
Network
App 2
Server
OS
Database
App Server
Storage
Network
App 3

9. Every Act an Invocation: Granular Privilege

10.  Password security policies
 Rich Sharing Rules
 User Profiles
 SSO/2-factor solutions
Login… Authenticate…
Apply Data
Security Rules… View Filtered Content
Bottom-Up Design to be “Shared and Secure”

11.  Expanding legislation, regulation, mainstream mind share
 Rising standard of due diligence
 Desktop/laptop systems carry far too much “state”
– More data than people actually use
– Far too much data that user may easily lose
– More than one version of what should be one shared truth
 Cloud’s Solutions:
– Logical view of exactly one database
– Profile definitions manage privilege sets
– Activity logs precisely record actions
Governance: More Eyes, More Agendas

12. Strong Session Management
Every row in the database contains an ORG_ID - Unique encoded string
Session Tokens – user unique, non-predictable long random value generated for
each session combined with a routing “hint” and checksum, base64 encoded
Contains no user-identifiable information
Session Timeout – 15 Mins to 8 Hrs
Lock Sessions to IP – prevent hijacking and replay attacks
SSLv3/TLS used to prevent token capture / session hijacking
Session Logout – Explicitly expire and destroy the session
Common Controls + Customer Choices

13. • SSL data encryption
• Optional strict password policies
• SAS 70 Type II & SysTrust Certification
• Security certifications from Fortune 50
financial services customers
• May 2008: ISO 27001 Certification
Platform Security
• Fault tolerant external firewall
• Intrusion detection systems
• Best practices secure systems mgmt
• 3rd party vulnerability assessments
Network Security
• 24x365 on site security
• Biometric readers, man traps
• Anonymous exterior
• Silent alarm
• CCTV
• Motion detection
• N+1 infrastructure
Facility Security
World-Class Defense in Depth
“There are some strong technical security arguments in favor of Cloud
Computing… (Craig Balding, Fortune 500 security practitioner)

14. Peter Coffee
VP for Strategic Research
pcoffee@salesforce.com
facebook.com/peter.coffee
twitter.com/petercoffee