A SURVEY OF THE HOST HYPERVISOR SECURITY ISSUES PRESENTED IN PUBLIC IAAS ENVIRONMENTS AND THEIR SOLUTIONS

The use of virtualization can be attributed to the success of cloud computing. However, usage of a hypervisor in a shared environment among mistrusting users presents significant challenges. This paper surveys the works on host hypervisor security issues presented in cloud computing, performing a short review of current literature on the subject. Addressing several key topics, namely threats and known attacks against the hypervisor or a virtual machine (vm) that exist in a shared environment. This paper also contains a thorough review and comparison of the current solutions and proposed mitigations for the known attacks and identifies any potential gaps. Aiming to uncover if a hypervisor can provide the level of confidentiality, integrity and availability expected by cloud consumers. Research is critically analyzed and consideration for each solutions suitability of implementation in an Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) environment is applied, including the impact on performance, if any.