Cloud Security Alliance Launches Secure Network Effort

Grazed from NetworkComputing. Author: Brian Prince.

Concern about the security of cloud environments has impacted the adoption of cloud services since their inception. But an initiative recently launched by the Cloud Security Alliance (CSA) may help protect cloud infrastructure by developing more secure networks.  Dubbed the Software-Defined Perimeter (SDP), the initiative is a collaborative effort between security vendors and members of the CSA’s Enterprise User Council. The vision is to develop a framework of security controls that takes some of the pain out of network security.

According to the CSA, the Software-Defined Perimeter leverages known security concepts such as federation, Secure Assertion Markup Language (SAML), Transport Layer Security (TLS), and geo-location in a bid to control and manage connectivity from any device to the cloud infrastructure…

"It takes a lot of time and energy to set up a secure network," said Junaid Islam, founder and chief technology officer of security vendor Vidder, and one of the initiative’s participants. The long list of steps — including setting up a PKI infrastructure to do device certs, which are then needed for mutual TLS, a federated identity system, and Web application firewalls — overwhelms people, he said…

Read more from the source @ http://www.networkcomputing.com/next-generation-data-center/servers/cloud-security-alliance-launches-secure/240164194