The grid environment is highly distributed. An area where current application software requirements and their usage patterns can be misaligned with site security policies is an assumption of the availability of IP network connectivity from anywhere to anywhere. The result of this assumption can be a weakening of site network access control measures and consequent increased likelihood of sites being subject to network attacks from the outside or being used as the source of an outbound attack on a third party. The latter case would be particularly severe if a distributed denial of service attack were to be mounted from.
