Evolving business models are progressively pushing for increasing digitalization of existing and novel processes. The ICT industry is already addressing this need by massive introduction of virtualization paradigms and tight integration with the physical environment, which allow the creation of multi-domain and complex business service chains. Emerging technologies undoubtedly bring more agility in service deployment and operation but also break traditional security models, which have not been conceived for dynamic and multi-tenancy environments.

In this paper, we briefly elaborate on existing gaps and research challenges towards advanced assurance and protection of trustworthy and reliable business chains spanning multiple administrative domains and heterogeneous infrastructures. We consolidate our analysis in a reference architecture, which includes all functional elements to effectively tackle the dynamic and agile nature of emerging ICT paradigms.