Securing Fog and Cloud Communication Using Attribute Based Access Control and Re-encryption

Abstract

Fog Computing is a type of distributed computing that reduces computation on the cloud by creating a new layer between the Internet of Things (IoTs) devices and the cloud. This helps to deliver the services more efficiently and effectively. The security concerns in fog computing are inherited from the cloud itself as the fog computing is derived from cloud computing. So, a major security concern in fog computing is during sharing of data, as illegitimate users could get access while the data is being shared. Attribute Based Encryption (ABE) method is proved to be beneficial for securing the data, but ABE method alone is not sufficient as there are various security concerns such as forward issue and backward issue. Various methods have been proposed by researchers to solve the problem, one such efficient solution is re-encryption. In this paper we propose a scheme that uses Ciphertext-policy Attribute based Encryption along with re-encryption for providing access control in fog and cloud communication. The analysis of the proposed scheme reveals better security and performance. We have also implemented the proposed scheme to show its effectiveness.