ISC CCSP - Certified Cloud Security Professional (CCSP)

JavaScript Object Notation (JSON) and Extensible Markup Language (XML) are the most commonly used data formats for the Representational State Transfer (REST) API and are typically implemented with caching for increased scalability and performance. Extensible Markup Language (XML) and Security Assertion Markup Language (SAML) are both standards for exchanging encoded data between two parties, with XML being for more general use and SAML focused on authentication and authorization data. HTML is used for authoring web pages for consumption by web browsers

When leasing space in a data center versus utilizing cloud services, a customer has a much greater control over its systems and services, from both the hardware/software perspective and the operational management perspective. Costs, regulations, and security are all prime considerations regardless of the hosting type selected. Although regulations will be the same in either hosting solution, in most instances, costs and security will be greater factors with leased space.

With a federated identity system, a user will perform authentication with their home organization, and the application will accept the authentication tokens and user information from the identity provider in order to grant access. The purpose of a federated system is to allow users to authenticate from their home organization. Therefore, using the application or a third-party authentication system would be contrary to the purpose of a federated system because it necessitates the creation of additional accounts. The use of a cloud provider would not be relevant to the operations of a federated system.

A cross-site request forgery (CSRF) attack forces a client that a user has used to authenticate to an application to send forged requests under the user's own credentials to execute commands and requests that the application thinks are coming from a trusted client and user. Although this type of attack cannot be used to steal data directly because the attacker has no way of seeing the results of the commands, it does open other ways to compromise an application. Missing function-level access control exists where an application only checks for authorization during the initial login process and does not further validate with each function call. Cross-site scripting occurs when an attacker is able to send untrusted data to a user's browser without going through validation processes. An injection attack is where a malicious actor sends commands or other arbitrary data through input and data fields with the intent of having the application or system execute the code as part of its normal processing and queries.

The Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS) pertains to organizations that handle credit card transactions and is an industry-regulatory standard, not a governmental one. The Sarbanes-Oxley Act (SOX) was passed in 2002 and pertains to financial records and reporting, as well as transparency requirements for shareholders and other stakeholders. The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) was passed in 1996 and pertains to data privacy and security for medical records. FISMA refers to the Federal Information Security Management Act of 2002 and pertains to the protection of all US federal government IT systems, with the exception of national security systems.

Structured storage is designed, maintained, and implemented by a cloud service provider as part of a PaaS offering. It is specific to that cloud provider and the way they have opted to implement systems, so special care is required to ensure that applications are not designed in a way that will lock the cloud customer into a specific cloud provider with that dependency. Unstructured storage for auxiliary files would not lock a customer into a specific provider. With volume and object storage, because the cloud customer maintains their own systems with IaaS, moving and replicating to a different cloud provider would be very easy.

DNSSEC is an extension of the normal DNS protocol that enables a system to verify the integrity of a DNS query resolution by signing it from the authoritative source and verifying the signing chain. It is not used for securing data transmissions or exchanges. HTTPS is the most common method for securing web service and data calls within a cloud, and TLS is the current standard for encrypting HTTPS traffic. VPNs are widely used for securing data transmissions and service access.

ISO/IEC 27050 strives to establish an internationally accepted standard for eDiscovery processes and best practices. It encompasses all steps of the eDiscovery process, including the identification, preservation, collection, processing, review, analysis, and the final production of the requested data archive. ISO/IEC 27001 is a general security specification for an information security management system. ISO/IEC 27002 gives best practice recommendations for information security management. ISO/IEC 27040 is focused on the security of storage systems.

A cross-site request forgery (CSRF) attack forces a client that a user has used to authenticate to an application to send forged requests under the user's own credentials to execute commands and requests that the application thinks are coming from a trusted client and user. Although this type of attack cannot be used to steal data directly because the attacker has no way to see the results of the commands, it does open other ways to compromise an application. Missing function-level access control exists where an application only checks for authorization during the initial login process and does not further validate with each function call. An injection attack is where a malicious actor sends commands or other arbitrary data through input and data fields with the intent of having the application or system execute the code as part of its normal processing and queries. Cross-site scripting occurs when an attacker is able to send untrusted data to a user's browser without going through validation processes.

TLS would be used with data in transit, when packets are exchanged between clients or services and sent across a network. During the data-in-use state, the data is already protected via a technology such as TLS as it is exchanged over the network and then relies on other technologies such as digital signatures for protection while being used. The data-at-rest state primarily uses encryption for stored file objects. Archived data would be the same as data at rest.

The store phase occurs immediately after the create phase, and as data is committed to storage structures, the first opportunity for security controls to be implemented is realized. During the create phase, the data is not yet part of a system where security controls can be applied, and although the use and share phases also entail the application of security controls, they are not the first phase where the process occurs.

Volume storage is allocated via a LUN to a system and then treated the same as any traditional storage. The operating system is responsible for formatting and securing volume storage as well as controlling all access to it. Applications, although they may use volume storage and have permissions to write to it, are not responsible for its formatting and security. Both a hypervisor and the management plane are outside of an individual system and are not responsible for managing the files and storage within that system.

Reproducibility is the measure of how easy it is to reproduce and successful use an exploit. Scoring within the DREAD model ranges from 0, signifying a nearly impossibly exploit, up to 10, which signifies something that anyone from a simple function call could exploit, such as a URL.

Any time a major functional change of an application occurs, a new BCDR test should be done to ensure the overall strategy and process are still applicable and appropriate.

Static application security testing (SAST) is conducted with knowledge of the system, including source code, and is done against offline systems.