Securing Files in the Cloud

Abstract

Public cloud storage has grown in popularity in recent years, both for personal and enterprise use. However, as with any 3rd party hosting solution, data security remains the major concern for most people. Secured Virtual Diffused File System (SVDFS) is a distributed file system which aims to address the security concerns by allowing users to transparently layer a secured virtual file system on top of existing public cloud infrastructure. SVDFS uses Information Dispersal Algorithm (IDA) to split the data into multiple unrecognizable slices and distribute them across multiple storage nodes in one or more cloud providers. With IDA, the adversary is required to compromise a threshold number of slices, in order to reconstruct the original information. IDA also provides availability of data without requiring full data replication. It helps to mitigate the loss of information in case a storage server or a specific storage medium is corrupted or compromised. Unlike other IDA-based storage systems, SDVFS supports file system operations such as streaming I/O and random read and write of files which have been dispersed using IDA.