Cloudification and security implications of TaaS

Cloud computing has got attention of telecommunications operators as a potential cost saver, because it enables sharing computing resources within network infrastructure and between operators. The concept of Telecommunications network as a Service (TaaS) has been proposed as a renovation direction of mobile operators. However, information security which is one of the major challenges of the cloud computing should be seriously investigated and discussed in order to realize TaaS in practice. For this purpose, we review new threats introduced by TaaS and discuss prevention mechanisms to resist them. Based on the cloud deployment model, we further propose a security framework, 'Cloud Security Framework for Operators (CSFO)' in order to support TaaS. We also go through open research issues about security related to TaaS and propose future research focus.