A Highly-Secure Self-Protection Data Scheme in Clouds Using Active Data Bundles and Agent-Based Secure Multi-party Computation

Protection of data in cloud computing is a critical problem for many enterprises. We propose a solution that protects sensitive data outsourced to a cloud throughout their entire life cycle—both in the cloud as well as outside of the cloud (e.g., during transmission to or from the cloud). Our solution, known as Active Data Bundles using Secure Multi-Party Computation (ADB-SMC), uses: (i) active data bundles (ADBs)—for self-protecting data; (ii) ciphertext-policy attribute-based encryption—for fine-grained access control; and, (iii) threshold RSA—for secure key management. We describe components and design of ADB-SMC and present the pseudocode for creating ADB to outsource data to the cloud. We implemented a prototype of the solution and compared its overhead with the overhead of the approach known as Active Bundles with Trusted Third Party (ABTTP). The results of performance tests show that the execution time overhead for ADBSMC is acceptable.