Design secure cloud infrastructure and platform components.
Covers cloud infrastructure components, secure data center design, risk assessment, security controls, and disaster recovery/business continuity.
5 minutes
5 Questions
Cloud Platform and Infrastructure Security, constituting Domain 3 of the Certified Cloud Security Professional (CCSP) certification, focuses on securing the physical and virtual foundations of the cloud environment. It addresses the design, implementation, and risk management of the underlying components—compute, storage, and networking—that support cloud services.
At the physical level, this domain covers the security of data centers, requiring rigorous environmental controls (HVAC, fire suppression) and strict physical access governance. However, the primary focus lies within the virtual infrastructure. Security practitioners must secure the hypervisor and virtualization layer to mitigate specific threats like 'VM escape,' where an attacker breaches the isolation between virtual machines or containers. Furthermore, the management plane—the console used to administer cloud resources—must be hardened via Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA) and Role-Based Access Control (RBAC) to prevent administrative compromise.
Network security in this context relies on Software-Defined Networking (SDN). Professionals must leverage Virtual Private Clouds (VPCs), implement micro-segmentation to isolate multi-tenant workloads, and secure connections via TLS/VPNs. Storage security mandates logical isolation, robust encryption key management, and data sanitization policies to prevent data remanence.
A central theme is the Shared Responsibility Model. While the Cloud Service Provider (CSP) secures the physical hardware and host infrastructure, the customer is responsible for securing the guest operating systems, virtual firewalls, and applications, particularly in Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS). Finally, this domain necessitates robust Business Continuity and Disaster Recovery (BC/DR) strategies, utilizing availability zones and geo-redundancy to ensure resilience against infrastructure failures.Cloud Platform and Infrastructure Security, constituting Domain 3 of the Certified Cloud Security Professional (CCSP) certification, focuses on securing the physical and virtual foundations of the cloud environment. It addresses the design, implementation, and risk management of the underlying comp…