1. Cloud Penetration Testing:
Methodology
By Bhavin Shah

2. Testing
the
Cloud
Question
Research
Threat
Statement
Experiment
and Model
Collect
Results
Propose
Solution
2

3. STEP 1
Ask Questions
Key Questions:
1) What are the various techniques used to
authenticate users to the cloud?
 Why is cloud authentication the paramount component
of cloud security?
2) How secure is authentication in the cloud?
 Are there security issues in elements other than the
cloud system (ex. physical security, databases, etc.) ?
3

4.  Establish a research environment
 OpenStack, open-source cloud software
 Research authentication measures for the specified
environment
 Keystone, OpenStack’s authentication service
 Horizon Dashboard, OpenStack’s graphical interface for
administrators to manage cloud resources
STEP 2
Research
4

5. STEP 3
Threat Statement
An attacker can obtain credentials of the cloud
administrator through hacking and/or social
engineering and use them to authenticate to a cloud and
temporarily or permanently damage normal operations.
5

6. STEP 4
Normal Operations
6

7. STEP 5
Vulnerability Testing
7

8. STEP 6
Results
Overview:
Information in the captured session cookie revealed
user credentials.
Why?
The credentials were insecure because by default,
Horizon uses HTTP for web communications
instead of the more secure HTTPS.
8

9. STEP 7
Devising a Solution
Problem Source: Use of HTTP
Solution: Enable HTTPS for communications
Avoiding similar problems in future:
 Follow security guidelines
 Properly configure new software
 Regularly check existing software for vulnerabilities and
apply patches
9

10. Extra Content
 Horizon
 Logging
 Nova Version
 SSH
 Image Provision
 Devstack Directory
10

11. 11
Shown here is the window used to login to the Horizon Dashboard.

12. 12
The screenshot above shows the process used to enable logging in OpenStack.

13. 13
Shown above is a command used to get the version number of OpenStack’s compute service, Nova.

14. 14
This is an error encountered while using SSH to connect to an OpenStack instance. It is occurring because
the key pair file used for security is not being accessed privately by the user who generated it.

15. 15
Above is an image of the OpenStack Dashboard. It currently shows several images that can be launched as instances in the cloud.

16. 16
Below is a screenshot from Ubuntu showing the main devstack directory.