CloudProtect: Managing Data Privacy in Cloud Applications

Abstract

This paper describes the CloudProtect middleware that empowers users to encrypt sensitive data stored within various cloud applications. However, most web applications require data in plaintext for implementing the various functionalities and in general, do not support encrypted data management. Therefore, CloudProtect strives to carry out the data transformations (encryption/decryption) in a manner that is transparent to the application, i.e., preserves all functionalities of the application, including those that require data to be in plaintext. Additionally, CloudProtect allows users flexibility in trading off performance for security in order to let them optimally balance their privacy needs and usage-experience.