Security Guidelines for Storage Infrastructure

Published

October 26, 2020

Author(s)

Ramaswamy Chandramouli, Doron Pinhas

Abstract

Storage technology, just like its computing and networking counterparts, has evolved from traditional storage service types, such as block, file, and object. Specifically, the evolution has taken two directions: one along the path of increasing storage media capacity (e.g., tape, HDD, solid-state drives (SSD)) and the other along the architectural front, starting from direct- attached storage (DAS) to the placement of storage resources in networks accessed through various interfaces and protocols to cloud-based storage resource access, which provides a software-based abstraction over all forms of background storage technologies. Accompanying the architectural evolution is the increase in management complexity, which subsequently increases the probability of configuration errors and associated security threats. This document provides an overview of the evolution of the storage technology landscape, current security threats, and the resultant risks. The main focus of this document is to provide a comprehensive set of security recommendations that will address the threats. The recommendations span not only security management areas that are common to an information technology (IT) infrastructure (e.g., physical security, authentication and authorization, change management, configuration control, and incident response and recovery) but also those specific to storage infrastructure (e.g., data protection, isolation, restoration assurance, and encryption).

Citation

Special Publication (NIST SP) - 800-209

Report Number

800-209

NIST Pub Series

Special Publication (NIST SP)

Pub Type

NIST Pubs

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DOI Link

Keywords

storage area network, network attached storage, storage array, file storage service, block storage service, object storage service, storage virtualization, software-defined storage, hyper-converged storage, data protection, cloud storage, backup, replication.

Citation

Chandramouli, R. and Pinhas, D. (2020), Security Guidelines for Storage Infrastructure, Special Publication (NIST SP), National Institute of Standards and Technology, Gaithersburg, MD, [online], https://doi.org/10.6028/NIST.SP.800-209 (Accessed April 23, 2024)