Mass-market, low-cost, commodity infrastructure-as-a-Service Cloud Computing providers abstract away compute, network and storage and deliver hyper-scaleable capabilities.
This "abstraction distraction" has brought us to the point where the sanctity and security of the applications and information transiting them are dependent upon security models and expertise rooted in survivable distributed systems, at layers where many security professionals have no visibility.
The fundamental re-architecture of the infostructure, metastructure and infrastructure constructs in this new world forces us back to the design elements of building survivable systems focusing on information centricity -- protecting the stuff that matters most in the first place.
The problem is that we're unprepared for what this means and most practitioners and vendors focused on the walled garden, perimeterized models of typical DMZ architecture are at a loss as to how to apply security in a disintermediated and distributed sets of automated, loosely-coupled resources.
We're going to cover the most salient points relating to how IaaS Cloud architecture shifts how, where and who architects, deploys and manages security in this "new world order" and what your options are in making sustainable security design decisions.
Cisco Systems Christopher Hoff has over 19 years of experience in high-profile global roles in network and information security architecture, engineering, operations, product management and marketing with a passion for virtualization and all things Cloud. Hoff is currently Director of Cloud and Virtualization Solutions of the Security Technology Business Unit at Cisco Systems. Prior to Cisco,he was Unisys Corporation’s Systems & Technology Division’s Chief Security Architect. Additionally, he served as Crossbeam Systems'’ Chief Security Strategist, was the Chief Information Security Officer for a $25 billion financial services company, and was founder/Chief Technology Officer of a national security consultancy. Hoff regularly speaks at high profile conferences, interviewed regularly by the media, is a featured guest on numerous podcasts and blogs at http://www.rationalsurvivability.com/blog. Hoff is a CISSP, CISA, CISM and NSA IAM. He was twice nominated as the Information Security Executive of the Year and won the Security 7 award in Financial Services in 2005.