The Internet of Things (IoT) is a rapidly emerging technology that has become more valuable and vital in our daily lives. This technology enables connection and communication between objects and devices and allows these objects to exchange information and perform intelligent operations with each other. However, due to the scale of the network, the heterogeneity of the network, the insecurity of many of these devices, and privacy protection, it faces several challenges. In the last decade, distributed DDoS attacks in IoT networks have become one of the growing challenges that require serious attention and investigation. DDoS attacks take advantage of the limited resources available on IoT devices, which disrupts the functionality of IoT-connected applications and services. This article comprehensively examines the effects of DDoS attacks in the context of the IoT, which cause significant harm to existing systems. Also, this paper investigates several solutions to identify and deal with this type of attack. Finally, this study suggests a broad line of research in the field of IoT security, dedicated to examining how to adapt to current challenges and predicting future trends.

In recent years, Cloud Computing has transformed local businesses and created new business models on the Internet- and Cloud services are still flourishing. But after the emphatic hype in the early years, a more realistic perception of Cloud services has emerged. One reason for this surely is that today, Cloud Computing is considered as an established and well-accepted technology and no longer as a technical novelty. But the second reason for this assessment might also be numerous security issues that Cloud Computing in general or specific Cloud services have experienced since then. In this paper, we revisit attacks on Cloud services and Cloud-related attack vectors that have been published in recent years. We then consider successful or proposed solutions to cope with these challenges. Based on these findings, we apply a security metric in order to rank all these Cloud-related security challenges concerning their severity. This should assist security professionals to prioritize their efforts toward addressing these issues.

In the context of modern software engineering, there is a trend towards Cloud-native software development involving international teams with members from all over the world. Cloud-based version management services like GitHub are commonly used for source code and other files. However, a challenge arises when developers from different companies or organizations share the platform, as sensitive data should be encrypted to restrict access to certain developers only. This paper discusses existing tools addressing this issue, highlighting their shortcomings. The authors propose their own solution, Encrypted Container Files, designed to overcome the deficiencies observed in other tools.

Open software ecosystems are beneficial for customers; they benefit from 3rd party services and applications, e.g. analysis of data using apps, developed and deployed by other companies or open-source communities. One significant advantage of this approach is that other customers may benefit from these newly developed applications as well. Especially software ecosystems utilizing container technologies are prone to certain risks. Docker, in particular, is more vulnerable to attacks than hypervisor based virtualisation as it directly operates on the host system. Docker is a popular representative of containerisation technology which offers a lightweight architecture in order to facilitate the set-up and creation of such software ecosystems. Popular Infrastructure as a Service cloud service providers, like Amazon Web Services or Microsoft Azure, jump on the containerisation bandwagon and provide interfaces for provisioning and managing containers. Companies can benefit from that change of technology and create software ecosystems more efficiently. In this paper, we present a new concept for significant security improvements for cloud-based software ecosystems using Docker for 3rd party app integration. Based on the security features of Docker we describe a secure integration of applications in the cloud environment securely. Our approach considers the whole software lifecycle and includes sandbox testing of potentially dangerous 3rd party apps before these became available to the customers.

Finding a robust security mechanism for audit trail logging has long been a poorly satisfied goal. There are many reasons for this. The most significant of these is that the audit trail is a highly sought after goal of attackers to ensure that they do not get caught. Thus they have an incredibly strong incentive to prevent companies from succeeding in this worthy aim. Regulation, such as the European Union General Data Protection Regulation, has brought a strong incentive for companies to achieve success in this area due to the punitive level of fines that can now be levied in the event of a successful breach by an attacker. We seek to resolve this issue through the use of an encrypted audit trail process that saves encrypted records to a true immutable database, which can ensure audit trail records are permanently retained in encrypted form, with no possibility of the records being compromised. This ensures compliance with the General Data Protection Regulation can be achieved.

Effective activity and event monitoring is an essential aspect of digital forensic readiness. Techniques for capturing log and other event data are familiar from conventional networked hosts and transfer directly to the Cloud context. In both contexts, a major concern is the risk that monitoring systems may be targeted and impaired by intruders seeking to conceal their illicit presence and activities. We outline an approach to intrusion monitoring that aims (i)~to ensure the credibility of log data and (ii)~provide a means of data sharing that supports log reconstruction in the event that one or more logging systems is maliciously impaired.