Container Breakout: IaaS Security Assessment — 1p — Emily Blixt, Mans Englund, Nicholas Gourley, Roch Laferriere, Marcus Kicklighter 

Ensuring confidentiality, integrity, and availability of multi-tenant sys tems are vital for IaaS companies. This study analyzes practical attack vectors of a multi-tenant, high performance compute cluster. To achieve a nuanced and pragmatic threat model of the target system, a white box penetration test was performed. Through a comprehensive system breakdown, fuzzing, alteration of HTTP messages, and other techniques, a wide range of vulnerabilities were found. To categorize the weaknesses, the STRIDE threat model was utilized. Multiple security recommenda tions and step-by-step guides to patch the target system were established given the threat model. Exploiting excessive Linux capabilities in Docker containerization and vulnerabilities in the REST API proved to be the most effective attack vectors. 

Further research analyzing the attack vectors regarding GPU memory leakage and GPU driver scheduling has to be done to ensure the safety of critical data in multi-tenant systems. Moreover, the study emphasizes the importance of building multiple lines of defense (defense in depth), rigorous integration tests between microservices, and continuous security assessments. 

Blekinge Institute of Technology
Mark Spanier