Workshop Details

Topic

Cloud computing is an enabler for innovation. Cloud computing has been widely advocated as a "game changer" in the EU's economy, for example as stated at the 2012 Davos Summit in January 2012 by European Commission Vice-President Neelie Kroes, who has pledged to work towards increasing the adoption of Cloud. At the Summit, Ms. Kroes stated that the main obstacles currently impeding broader cloud adoption are standards, certification, data protection, interoperability, lock-in, and legal certainty. This workshop will address such issues with a particular focus on how accountability and transparency can enhance trustworthiness in the cloud, and the technical and policy mechanisms required to enable them.

The split of control over data and operations among cloud actors, particularly cloud service providers and cloud consumers has made trust management a critical focus for accelerating cloud adoption. Currently there is a lack of transparency and accountability from the provider side as for service provisioning/de-provisioning, tenant isolation, data processing and movement, privacy protection as well as many other aspects which were once fully under the control and monitoring of the consumer. Even if key terms are being added into cloud contracts (Service Level Agreements), processes and techniques must be developed to continuously monitor and audit these terms and ensure adequate transparency, and cloud providers must both provide adequate security and privacy and be prepared to provide adequate evidence about security and privacy provision. Many of these required capabilities overlap with forensic and investigative techniques. Cloud forensics, i.e., post-incident investigation in cloud computing environments, is an emerging area faced with significant challenges compared with traditional computer/network forensics; however, the cloud also offers unique opportunities such as cost-effectiveness, elasticity and service-oriented modelling that might facilitate investigations both for internal security incident management and for civil/criminal investigations.

The TFAC 2013 workshop will bring together experts from computer science and other disciplines to discuss collectively how public and private sectors as well as the research community can increase the confidence in the use of cloud computing to deploy and use innovative services by citizens and businesses.

Workshop Format

The workshop will run from morning of 6th June 2013 until lunchtime of 7th June 2013. It is intended as a multi-disciplinary forum for experts to discuss, brainstorm, and share insights on accountability, covering conceptual discussions and legal, socio-economic and policy aspects as well as technical mechanisms including how to design a forensic-enabling cloud ecosystem to improve accountability and transparency of cloud service provision. The outcome from the workshop can provide valuable input for building international cooperation on various cloud standard acceleration projects, as well as drive research and technological innovations towards future research programmes such as Horizon 2020. The workshop will comprise a mixture of invited talks, contributed talks, panels, and breakout groups.

*If there is enough interest, additional activities can be organized for the afternoon of 7th June 2013.