Access Control in Cloud Computing

Abstract

Data sharing as one of the most popular service applications in cloud computing has received wide attention, which makes the consumers achieve the shared contents whenever and wherever possible. However, the new paradigm of data sharing will also introduce some security issues while it provides much convenience. The data confidentiality, the privacy security, the user key accountability, and the efficiency are hindering its rapid expansion. An effective and secure access control mechanism is becoming one way to deal with this dilemma. In this chapter, the authors focus on presenting a detailed review on the existing access control mechanisms. Then, they explore some potential research issues for the further development of more comprehensive and secure access control schemes. Finally, the authors expect that the topic of access control in cloud computing will attract much more attention from academia and industry.