Cloud Security: The Industry Landscape and the Lure of Zero-Knowledge Protection

Abstract

Cloud computing is a change agent to how information technologies are consumed by businesses and consumers. The agility, scale, and resiliency brought by the cloud fundamentally changed the IT economy for many organizations. However, security assurance for cloud continues to be a barrier for adoption. This talk surveys the current cloud security technology landscape and more specifically the subject of "zero-knowledge protection" (ZKP). Borrowed from zero-knowledge proof, ZKP is a concept that allows cloud users to leverage cloud application functions without revealing critical data to the cloud infrastructure. ZKP has far-reaching impact on privacy, government surveillance, and data residency. There is also much misconception on what ZKP is and is not capable of doing. This talk looks at the specifics of ZKP technologies, the use cases for which ZKP provides the most value, and the ensuing societal impact. We will examine how ZKP can work across various layers of the cloud, from IaaS to SaaS, and briefly touch on how ZKP can function with some of the newer cloud technologies like Linux Containers and Docker.