The PEACH Framework is a structured approach designed to improve tenant isolation in cloud applications—especially in multi-tenant environments like SaaS and PaaS platforms. Here’s a detailed breakdown:
🧠 What Is the PEACH Framework?
PEACH stands for five key principles used to evaluate and strengthen tenant isolation:
| Letter | Principle | Description |
|---|---|---|
| P | Privilege Hardening | Minimize permissions for tenants and hosts to reduce attack surface. |
| E | Encryption Hardening | Encrypt each tenant’s data with a unique key to prevent unauthorized access. |
| A | Authentication Hardening | Use tenant-specific validated keys for secure communication. |
| C | Connectivity Hardening | Block inter-host connectivity by default unless explicitly approved. |
| H | Hygiene | Remove unnecessary secrets, software, and logs to reduce exposure. |
These principles help cloud providers and developers model and improve the security boundaries that separate tenants from one another.
🔐 Why It Matters
In multi-tenant cloud environments, flawed isolation can lead to cross-tenant vulnerabilities, where one customer might access another’s data. Real-world examples like ChaosDB and Hell’s Keychain have exposed these risks.
PEACH provides:
- A common language for discussing tenant isolation.
- A baseline for evaluating and improving security boundaries.
- A transparent framework for vendors to demonstrate their isolation posture.
🛠️ How It Works
-
Modeling Tenant Isolation
- Conduct a review of customer-facing interfaces.
- Identify existing security boundaries.
- Measure their strength using the P.E.A.C.H. parameters.
-
Improving Tenant Isolation
- Reduce interface complexity to limit attacker control.
- Harden or replace weak boundaries.
- Duplicate shared components to isolate vulnerabilities (e.g., per-tenant or per-region).
-
Promoting Transparency
- Encourage vendors to share their isolation strategies.
- Foster collaboration across the industry to standardize best practices.
📚 Learn More
You can explore the official framework and its documentation on PEACH’s website or check out the GitHub repository for technical details and examples.
