Todd Christopher Wolff

US Patent:

20110047381, Feb 24, 2011

Filed:

Aug 20, 2010

Appl. No.:

12/859986

Inventors:

Ravi GANESAN - Half Moon Bay CA, US
Todd Wolff - Boerne TX, US

Assignee:

BOARD OF REGENTS, THE UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS SYSTEM - Austin TX

International Classification:

H04L 29/06
G06F 17/00
H04L 9/32

US Classification:

713169, 726 1

Abstract:

The present invention provides a new method for policy enforcement in a virtualized or cloud environment. We break down the environment into layers, which are further sub-divided into security units. Each security unit has a security profile based on its own security properties and those of the layers below. The security profile also reflects the floor, ceiling and wall security properties. Each security unit has an agent which is used to establish communications with other security units. Such communication is mediated by a cloud trust broker which determines if the communication is permitted based on access control list or else retrieves the security profiles and applies pre-defined rules. If the communications are allowed the cloud trust broker runs a mutual authentication and key distribution protocol that results in the two security units obtaining a session key which they can then use for further communications which can proceed directly.