Secure Data Storage in Cloud Computing

This assignment delves into the crucial topic of secure data storage within cloud computing systems, particularly focusing on big data. It examines various security threats and vulnerabilities associated with storing vast amounts of data in the cloud. The assignment analyzes different cryptographic approaches, such as encryption and digital signatures, employed to protect sensitive information during transmission and storage. Furthermore, it explores privacy-preserving techniques aimed at safeguarding user data while enabling authorized access for analysis and processing. The role of auditing mechanisms in ensuring data integrity and accountability is also discussed.

Running Head: EMERGING TECHNOLOGIES AND INNOVATION
Emerging Technologies and Innovation
Name of the Student
Name of the University

1EMERGING TECHNOLOGIES AND INNOVATION
Article 1: Li, Y., Gai, K., Qiu, L., Qiu, M., & Zhao, H. (2017). Intelligent
cryptography approach for secure distributed big data storage in cloud
computing. Information Sciences, 387, 103-115.
In this article, the authors have discussed about the use of cloud computing and its
security issues faced during big data management. The authors have emphasized that cloud
computing has a wide range of uses in business organizations and hence, there should be no
compromise with the security of the cloud during big data management. Big data management is
an extremely complex task as it involves management of large and complex datasets and cloud
computing helps to handle and manage these operations according to requirements. Most of the
datasets handled by big data are confidential and secure information of business organizations
and hence, they are the preferred targets of unethical internet users and hackers. Hence, cloud
security is the most essential requirement for business organizations so that their confidential
data and information are not lost due to breach of security attacks.
Article 2: Hashem, I. A. T., Yaqoob, I., Anuar, N. B., Mokhtar, S., Gani, A., &
Khan, S. U. (2015). The rise of “big data” on cloud computing: Review and open research
issues. Information Systems, 47, 98-115.
In this article, the authors have described about the relations between cloud computing,
big data management and Hadoop technology. The discussion of the relations between the
different technologies enabled the authors to realize the amount of data that is daily managed
through big data and need for proper security. As per the authors, the volume of data entered into
the big data are rising at an exponential pace as more and more data servers are virtualized
instead of using physical storage spaces. As a result, hackers are using more advanced techniques

2EMERGING TECHNOLOGIES AND INNOVATION
to break into such data servers and steal confidential information from them. Even though the
business organizations are using suitable security measures like data encryption, system and
network firewalls, security softwares and others, every day, thousands of gigabytes of data and
information are stolen by the hackers and other unethical third party users. This is because their
hacking technologies are also evolving and getting stronger at a rapid pace.
Article 3: Inukollu, V. N., Arsi, S., & Ravuri, S. R. (2014). Security issues associated
with big data in cloud computing. International Journal of Network Security & Its
Applications, 6(3), 45.
The authors have mainly studied about the hacking technologies that are mostly
responsible for breaching the security of the cloud computing in big data management. They
have emphasized on the need to develop and upgrade current security systems at a faster pace
that the hacking technologies that are the main threats of cloud computing. As per the authors,
the hackers use decoding technologies to break through data encryptions and steal data from the
decrypted data packet. The most common technique used by them is the injection of malicious
files into the system that can work itself to reach data packets and start decryption work on the
same. While some malicious files can be detected easily by the system firewalls and ejected out
of the system, some others are non-detectable until they have completed the decryption process
entirely. These types of malicious files are masked with different identified and hence are hard to
detect as spam. These files generally come through online advertisements, emails and others.
Article 4: Lu, R., Zhu, H., Liu, X., Liu, J. K., & Shao, J. (2014). Toward efficient
and privacy-preserving computing in big data era. IEEE Network, 28(4), 46-50.

3EMERGING TECHNOLOGIES AND INNOVATION
The authors have explored how the masking of the spam files enter into the system
without alerting the system firewalls. While using the systems, some users browse the internet
for various websites and in many of these, various advertisement links pop up. While some are
authentic advertisements, others are malicious files masked as advertisements. Furthermore,
most of the masked files advert for very popular organizations like amazon and quickly raise the
interest of the user. Whenever the user clicks on the link, instead of redirecting to the company
page, the link downloads the malicious file into the system of the user. Once downloaded, the
file works itself to spread into other systems connected to the same server and even the central
database server. In each of the places, the files capture data packets and in case of encrypted
data, the files use their decryption techniques for breaking into the packets and capture
information.
Article 5: Sookhak, M., Gani, A., Khan, M. K., & Buyya, R. (2017). Dynamic remote
data auditing for securing big data storage in cloud computing. Information Sciences, 380,
101-116.
The authors investigated another possible reason that causes the security issues in cloud
computing. They stated that the users of cloud can manage the data that is used in cloud but have
no control over the data once they are stored inside the server i.e. the users can determine the
data management processes to be conducted by the cloud they cannot determine the location
where the data will be stored. As a result, from the user’s end, data storage location cannot be
secured and hence, if a malicious file is injected inside the cloud storage, the user cannot recover
the contents from the server. Hence, it is recommended that the entire network connected to the
cloud should be secured so that the malicious injections do not work at all.

4EMERGING TECHNOLOGIES AND INNOVATION
Article 6: Zhang, Y., Qiu, M., Tsai, C. W., Hassan, M. M., & Alamri, A. (2017).
Health-CPS: Healthcare cyber-physical system assisted by cloud and big data. IEEE
Systems Journal, 11(1), 88-95.
The authors of this article have suggested maintaining data logs while working in cloud.
The regular data log will ensure a track is kept of what data has been entered into the system and
what data has been extracted. Furthermore, regular auditing of the data log should be done in
order to ensure there are no errors inside the data log. However if there is unusual data found
during the auditing, it should be immediately removed from the storage as it may be the result of
injection of malicious files inside the system. Such injections are very common incidents and
hence, regular logging and auditing is required to monitor whether some unusual data are
inserted along with the normal data to be stored inside the cloud. Furthermore, since the user has
no control inside the cloud, he needs to secure the gateway itself that leads the data from the
user’s end to the cloud storage server.
Article 7: Bahrami, M., & Singhal, M. (2015). The role of cloud computing
architecture in big data. In Information granularity, big data, and computational
intelligence (pp. 275-295). Springer International Publishing.
The authors have discussed about ransomware, probably the largest threat to cloud
computing for big data management. Ransomwares are specially designed malicious files that
enter into the system, capture significant amount of data and lock it with such strong encryption
that cannot be broken by any regular means. As per the study of the authors, ransomwares use
extremely complex encryptions that may take thousands of years if they are decrypted using
regular means. The main purpose of these ransomwares is to gather a huge amount of ransom in

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exchange for decryption of the data. With increasing time, the amount of ransom demanded also
increases significantly. Within a particular period of time, if the ransom is not paid, the files are
either deleted permanently or sold to a rival organization for huge amount of money. As per the
authors, there are no particular counters to ransomwares as the existing techniques are not
sufficient for decrypting the files captured by ransomwares. Hence, it is better to protect the
system and prevent the entry of ransomwares in it.
Article 8: Baek, J., Vu, Q. H., Liu, J. K., Huang, X., & Xiang, Y. (2015). A secure
cloud computing based framework for big data information management of smart
grid. IEEE transactions on cloud computing, 3(2), 233-244.
The authors have explored another main issue related to cloud security in big data
management. According to the authors, the cloud service providers do not provide any security
to the clients. Hence, the users of cloud have to ensure the security of the cloud themselves only.
In many cases of common and general users, it has been found that they are not really aware of
the lack of security in cloud and continue to use them without securing them. Mostly, the users
have said that they are not aware of the fact that the cloud service providers do not provide cloud
security systems. Hence, in addition to the development of cloud security, awareness should also
be raised among users to use cloud security system before starting to use the services.
Article 9: Gai, K., Qiu, M., Zhao, H., & Xiong, J. (2016, June). Privacy-aware
adaptive data encryption strategy of big data in cloud computing. In Cyber Security and
Cloud Computing (CSCloud), 2016 IEEE 3rd International Conference on (pp. 273-278).
IEEE.

6EMERGING TECHNOLOGIES AND INNOVATION
The authors discussed about some practical solutions that can be used to counter cloud
security issues in big data management. The primary and most practical solution, as explained by
the authors, is to reinforce the internal security of the system in order to prevent any
unauthorized access into the server. The attacks occur through various sources of the internet and
hence, the network layer should be secured using suitable network firewalls. The main emphasis
should be on the transport layer that is the most vulnerable point and the attackers try to steal
data during the transmission of the data. The authors also recommended the use of suitable
antivirus softwares that will resist injection of malwares and other malicious files into the
system.
Article 10: Chang, V., & Ramachandran, M. (2016). Towards achieving data
security with the cloud computing adoption framework. IEEE Transactions on Services
Computing, 9(1), 138-151.
The authors have explored more advanced methods of cloud computing security that is
more applicable for business organizations. They have suggested the use of strong data
encryptions in order to secure the data during the transmission. However, in addition, they have
suggested that the encryption should be multilayered, i.e. instead of one, there should be at least
two or three layers of encryption. This will strengthen the security of the data as it will be
extremely difficult to break through several layers of encryption. As per their studies, most of the
attacks in business organizations occur due to lack of sufficient encryption on the data and the
advanced decryption technologies of hackers easily break through the encryptions and steal
confidential and valuable data.

7EMERGING TECHNOLOGIES AND INNOVATION
Article 11: Purcell, B. M. (2014). Big data using cloud computing. Journal of
Technology Research, 5, 1.
The authors have proposed the use of SA-EDS (Security-Aware Efficient Distributed
Storage) for addressing data efficiency performance in cloud. They also suggested the
development of Security Improvement Problem in Distributed Storage (SIPDS) for addressing
the cloud security issues. This system along with the input data and the cloud server finds
appropriate solution for securing the data while being stored inside the cloud. This system also
delivers the data to the cloud server even though the execution time increases by some margin.
The AD2 algorithm of the SA-EDS model is required to analyze the efficiency of the system
regarding cloud security and provide suitable output regarding the amount of further security
measures required in the server.
Article 12: Zhao, J., Wang, L., Tao, J., Chen, J., Sun, W., Ranjan, R., ... &
Georgakopoulos, D. (2014). A security framework in G-Hadoop for big data computing
across distributed Cloud data centres. Journal of Computer and System Sciences, 80(5), 994-
1007.
The authors explored several algorithms that are applicable for managing various
operations of data inside the cloud in a secure way. AD2 algorithm was used by authors for
managing data packets that are entered into the cloud server as inputs. This algorithm splits a
data packet into several parts and names them separately. The advantage of using this particular
process is that as the data splits into separate sub-packets, the attacker cannot access the entire
data even if he breaks into the system successfully. If the attacker captures one or two sub-
packets of data, he will only be able to steal a part of the data that will be not much meaningful.

8EMERGING TECHNOLOGIES AND INNOVATION
The authors have stated that this can be a very effective method of securing cloud servers where
several confidential data like business strategies, finance reports and others are entered and
stored.
Article 13: Assunção, M. D., Calheiros, R. N., Bianchi, S., Netto, M. A., & Buyya, R.
(2015). Big Data computing and clouds: Trends and future directions. Journal of Parallel
and Distributed Computing, 79, 3-15.
The authors have explored some other algorithms like SED2 and EDCon for securing
cloud networks. As per their works, SED2 algorithm can be used for completing data processing
before the data is sent over to the cloud. In most of cases, the data processing is done inside the
cloud server after the transmission of data to the cloud server is complete. As a result, the
hackers get access to raw data if they are able to break into the transport layer and capture the
data packets during transmission. On the other hand, if the data processing is done earlier, the
processed data becomes much more secure as it is not much of use to the hackers than
unprocessed raw data. As per the authors, EDCon algorithm can be effectively used to develop a
schematic architecture of data that will be much more secure and resistant to attacks than normal
architectures.
Article 14: Youssef, A. E. (2014). A framework for secure healthcare systems based
on big data analytics in mobile cloud computing environments. Int J Ambient Syst
Appl, 2(2), 1-11.
The authors have explored a number of encryption techniques that can be used for the
security of cloud data. The first encryption method explained by the authors is file encryption in
which the files are encrypted before sent over to the cloud server for storage. However, in many

9EMERGING TECHNOLOGIES AND INNOVATION
cases, it has been found that file encryptions are not very efficient in cases of very powerful
attacks that are executed by extremely advanced decryption techniques. Another encryption
method explained by the authors is network encryption in which, instead of the data packets, the
entire network is encrypted i.e. all communications and transmissions through the network are
encrypted using some specific standards.
Article 15: Chang, V., Kuo, Y. H., & Ramachandran, M. (2016). Cloud computing
adoption framework: A security framework for business clouds. Future Generation
Computer Systems, 57, 24-41.
The authors have explained about some other techniques that are useful in developing
cloud security. One of the methods includes maintenance of nodes so that no unwanted and
unauthorized accesses are possible through them. The authors have highlighted the use of
honeypot nodes – specially designed trap nodes that are placed within cluster of nodes.
Whenever an attacker tries to enter such a node cluster, the honeypot nodes trap the attacker and
immediately eject him out of the system. Honeypot nodes are masked in such a way that they are
not distinguishable from other nodes as they appear the same to the attackers. The authors have
also emphasized on access control i.e. control access to the network. This is possible by using
several layers of verification processes to ensure there is no unauthorized access inside the
system.
Article 16: Cuzzocrea, A. (2014, November). Privacy and security of big data:
current challenges and future research perspectives. In Proceedings of the First
International Workshop on Privacy and Secuirty of Big Data (pp. 45-47). ACM.

10EMERGING TECHNOLOGIES AND INNOVATION
The authors have researched on the overall cloud security issues in big data management
and have emphasized on the fact that cloud security is a problem that must be addressed with
immediate effect. Each day, due to lack of sufficient cloud security, several terabytes of data are
lost as more and more attacks are attempted on the cloud data servers especially of the large
scale business organizations who extensively use cloud computing for management and storage
of large volumes of big data. Hence, it is important to develop more advanced security systems
for cloud computing that will not only help protect the large volumes of data but will also help to
develop cloud computing significantly.
Current Problem

11EMERGING TECHNOLOGIES AND INNOVATION
Figure 1: Current Problem with Cloud Security Architecture
(Source: Bahrami & Singhal, 2015, pp. 285)
The red marked area in the diagram shows the current vulnerability/problem in the
current cloud architectures used in most organizations i.e. there is no sufficient security in the
transport layer between the user and the cloud and hence it is the most vulnerable point in the
same. Hence, the proposed detailed structure of the transport layer security is shown in the
following diagram.
Figure 2: Proposed New Cloud Security Using Protocols and Standards
(Source: Bahrami & Singhal, 2015, pp. 293)

12EMERGING TECHNOLOGIES AND INNOVATION
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13EMERGING TECHNOLOGIES AND INNOVATION
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14EMERGING TECHNOLOGIES AND INNOVATION
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rise of “big data” on cloud computing: Review and open research issues. Information
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15EMERGING TECHNOLOGIES AND INNOVATION
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16EMERGING TECHNOLOGIES AND INNOVATION
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mobile cloud computing environments. Int J Ambient Syst Appl, 2(2), 1-11.
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security framework in G-Hadoop for big data computing across distributed Cloud data
centres. Journal of Computer and System Sciences, 80(5), 994-1007.