Malware Mitigation in Cloud Computing Architecture

Cloud computing is one of the decade’s most trending discussions in information technology. The cloud is not an array of software, hardware or services but a vast shared resource that accommodates a large volume of users and offers dynamic access that is dependent on the demands. Despite all the benefits and potentials, cloud computing infrastructure is highly vulnerable to many security challenges, including malware. Therefore, research towards detecting these malware as well as safeguarding the cloud architecture against malware attacks are increasing. In this research, malware attacks and the techniques for safeguarding against malware challenges in cloud computing architecture were analysed. The work reported that the commonly reported security threats include data loss and breaches, malicious insiders, man-in-the-middle attacks, denial of service (DOS), distributed denial of service (DDOS) attacks, cookie poisoning attacks, wrapping attacks, etc., where several variants of malware are responsible for most of these attacks. The malware identified includes Trojan horses, worms, backdoors, viruses, rootkits, botnets, etc. Identified detection techniques include malware detection and prevention systems (MDPS), antiviruses and virtual machine introspection (VMI). Various methods were also identified for safeguarding the cloud against these attacks, including round trip time, address resolution protocol, intrusion prevention system, regular cookie cleanup, firewall implementation, advanced authentication and isolation methodologies between virtual machines. Nevertheless, these methods do not often perform satisfactorily, perhaps because of the continued surfacing of malware. Among others, this research recommends, since there is yet no omnibus approach to all security challenges, regular auditing of the cloud and the design/consideration of approaches that combine multiple detections and/or mitigation techniques.