2024-08-15 –, Conference Auditorium (capacity 260)
We explore the security model exposed by Rook with Ceph, the leading software-defined storage platform of the Open Source world. Digging increasingly deeper in the stack, we examine hardening options for Ceph storage appropriate for a variety of threat profiles. Options include defining a threat model, limiting the blast radius of an attack by implementing separate security zones, the use of encryption at rest and in-flight and FIPS 140-2 validated ciphers, hardened builds and default configuration, as well as user access controls and key management. Data retention and secure deletion are also addressed. The very process of containerization creates additional security benefits with lightweight separation of domains. Rook makes the process of applying hardening options easier, as this becomes a matter of simply modifying a .yaml file with the appropriate security context upon creation, making it a snap to apply the standard hardening options of Ceph to a container-based storage system.
Federico Lucifredi is the Product Management Director for Ceph Storage at Red Hat and IBM, and a co-author of O'Reilly's "Peccary Book" on AWS System Administration. Previously, he was the Ubuntu Server product manager at Canonical, where he oversaw a broad portfolio and the rise of Ubuntu Server to the rank of most popular OS on Amazon AWS. A software engineer-turned-manager at the Novell corporation, he was part of the SUSE Linux team, overseeing the update lifecycle and delivery stack of a $150 million maintenance business. A CIO and a network software architect at advanced technology and embedded Linux startups, Federico was also a lecturer for over 200 students in Boston University's graduate and undergraduate programs, and simultaneously a consultant for MIT implementing fluid-dynamics simulations in Java.
Sage is a security analyst at IBM who is passionate about the intersection of computer security, privacy, formal languages and systems. They have degrees from the University of Massachusetts Amherst and the University of California, Santa Cruz and are working hard to make the world a better place through computing.