Enhancing data privacy and access anonymity in cloud computing

Abstract

There is a growing interest in cloud computing due to its various benefits such as the efficient utilization of computing resources. However, privacy and security concerns are among the main obstacles facing the widespread adoption of this new technology. For instance, it is more desirable for many potential organizations and users that privacy protections and access authorizations on their data stored in the cloud remain under their control and only authorized entities can have access to the data even for the cloud server. In this paper, we propose a method that enables cloud clients more control of data security requirements on their data stored in the cloud. The data is protected by a client before it is sent to the cloud in a secure manner that only authorized users can access it. To provide a complete protection from unauthorized access, even the cloud provider is prevented from revealing the data content and access control policies. The client or data owner has complete control on what methods to use to protect the data and on who can have access on the data. The proposed method is based on a combination of cryptography techniques, including the Chines Remainder Theorem, symmetric and asymmetric encryptions. The proposed method combines access control and key sharing in one mechanism. In addition, the proposed method allows a client to use a unique key to encrypt the data and attaches it securely to its encrypted data. Only authorized users can have access to the key in order to decrypt the encrypted data. The data has all the security requirements independently attached to it including the integrity proof. The proposed method is efficient and has its computational overheard minimized. With all the security requirements and metadata stored with the data itself, the proposed method is also flexible and suitable for protecting clients’ data in the cloud computing environment.