Mohammed Ali Kamoona Int. Journal of Engineering Research and Application www.ijera.com ISSN : 2248-9622, Vol. 8, Issue 4, ( Part -II) April 2018, pp.13-17 www.ijera.com DOI: 10.9790/9622-0804021317 13 | Page Enhancing the Hypervisor as a Second Layer of Authentication Mohammed Ali Kamoona 1 , Ahmad Mousa Altamimi 2 2 (Computer Science Department, Faculty Of Information Technology/Applied Science Private University, Jordan) 2 (Computer Science Department, Faculty Of Information Technology/Applied Science Private University, Jordan) Corresponding author: Mohammed Ali Kamoona ABSTRACT : Hosting Services Over The Internet Has Become One Of The Most Terms Pervaded The IT World. Cloud Computing Is A General Term Refers To The Platform Of Hardware And Software Being Used To Migrating Computing Resources To A Virtualized Environment. It Enables Users To Consume Resources, Such As A Virtual Machine (VM), Storage, Or Use A Utility From Anywhere. In This Regard, Hypervisor Or Virtualization Is A Program Designed Specifically To Facilitate The Hosting Of Several Different Virtual Machines On A Single Hardware. Being Said That, Hypervisors May Also Provide Additional Attack Vectors As They Are Commonly Supported By A Simple Password Authentication Scheme. Such Scheme Is Entirely Based On Confidentiality And The Strength Of The Password, Which Is Vulnerable To Various Attacks Such As Offline Password Guessing Attack And A Privileged Insider's Attack. In This Paper, A Second Level Of Authentication Process Is Introduced To Provide Further Security Countermeasures For The Hypervisor Management System. Because Of The Maturity Of These Systems In General, It Is Important To Ground Our Approach. To This End, A Model Is Provided That Utilizes The Encryption Technique In Order To Introduce Better Authentication Process For The Existed Multiple Hypervisor Systems With Little Modification. Keywords -Cloud Computing, Hypervisor, Virtual Machine, Authentication --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Date of Submission: 31-03-2018 Date of acceptance: 16-04-2018 --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- I. INTRODUCTION In Recent Years, The Using Of Cloud Systems Is Becoming More Essential In Our Life As The Computer Resources Can Be Migrated To A Virtualized Environment With Low Costs. This Is Supported, In Part, By The Development Of Connecting Computers Over The Internet. One Of The Main Aspects Of Cloud Computing Is Virtualization, Which Enables Enterprises In Order To Virtualize Or Expand The Capabilities Of Their Resources To Improve The System's Reliability. In Other Words, Virtualization Allows To Share A Single Physical Instance Of A Resource Or An Application Among Multiple Users Or Even Multiple Enterprises As Virtual Machines [1]. However, In Order To Determine The Access Of Shared Resource, Hypervisor Is Introduced To Isolate And Control The Different Virtual Machines From The Underlying Computer Hardware [4]. Specifically, A Hypervisor Allows The Underlying Host Machine Hardware (E.G., A Server) To Independently Operate One Or More Virtual Machines As Guests. This Permits Multiple Guest Vms To Effectively Share The System's Physical Compute Resources Such As Processor Cycles, Memory Space, Network Bandwidth And So On [7]. In Fact, There Are Two Main Types Of Hypervisors: The First Type Is Running On A Local Machine Presenting A Virtual Operating System For Operating Various Virtual/Guest Machines. The Second Type Is Installed On A Cloud Server, Called Cloud Virtualization, Which Can Be Subdivided Into Two Categories: Hypervisors That Are Deployed Directly Atop The System's Hardware Without Any Underlying Operating Systems Or Other Software, And Hypervisors That Are Running As A Software Layer Atop A Host Operating System And Is Usually Called Hosted Hypervisors [10]. In This Work We Will Consider The Hosted Hypervisors And Proposed A Model For Enhancing Its Authentication Process. Figure 1 Illustrates These Types. Practically, Many Hypervisors Have Been Developed, One Can Consider For Example: XEN, KVM, OPEN VZ, VMW WEAR, And HYPER-V. Some Of These Hypervisors Are Closed Source And The Others Are Opened Source Like XEN And KVM [17,19,13]. Our Major Concern Here Is Securing The Shared Resources. In Particular, The Hypervisor Determines How Much Each Virtual Machine Can Use And What Can Access The Host Recuses. It Does Not Allow Direct Access To The RESEARCH ARTICLE OPEN ACCESS