Authentication and identity management based on zero trust security model in micro-cloud environment

TL;DR

This paper proposes a zero trust-based authentication and identity management framework for micro-cloud environments, emphasizing trust scoring, policy generation, and secure resource sharing.

Contribution

It introduces an integrated trust score mechanism and adaptive policies within zero trust architecture tailored for micro-cloud platforms.

Findings

Effective trust score calculation enhances security

Policy generation adapts to dynamic trust levels

Proof-of-concept demonstrates practical applicability

Abstract

The abilities of traditional perimeter-based security architectures are rapidly decreasing as more enterprise assets are moved toward the cloud environment. From a security viewpoint, the Zero Trust framework can better track and block external attackers while limiting security breaches resulting from insider attacks in the cloud paradigm. Furthermore, Zero Trust can better accomplish access privileges for users and devices across cloud environments to enable the secure sharing of resources. Moreover, the concept of zero trust architecture in cloud computing requires the integration of complex practices on multiple layers of system architecture, as well as a combination of a variety of existing technologies. This paper focuses on authentication mechanisms, calculation of trust score, and generation of policies in order to establish required access control to resources. The main objective is to incorporate an unbiased trust score as a part of policy expressions while preserving the configurability and adaptiveness of parameters of interest. Finally, the proof-of-concept is demonstrated on a micro-cloud plat-form solution.