Security as a Service Model for Cloud Storage

Abstract

Along with the widespread interest in cloud computing, there are still concerns that hinder the proliferation and the adoption of cloud services. One of the main concerns is data security in cloud storage environments. Numerous research problems belonging to cloud storage security have been studied intensively before. However, addressing the three dimensions of outsourced data security (i.e., confidentiality, availability, and integrity) as a cloud service is still a challenge in cloud storage. As there is always a tradeoff between maintaining security and obtaining efficiency, it is difficult but nevertheless essential to explore how to efficiently address security challenges over dynamic cloud data. This paper proposes an integrated security model for data storage in the cloud that provides authentication, access control, auditing and data management services. A strong authentication sub-system that is based on the traditional password and the user keystroke dynamics is presented. A dynamic access control system is proposed to ensure data confidentiality in cloud computing. A public auditing system is proposed to delegate the integrity verification of outsourced data in the cloud storage to a third party auditor while maintaining the data privacy. Experimental results demonstrate the effectiveness and efficiency of the proposed model.