Security Procedures for Data Protection in Cloud Computing

MOD002602 Computing Research Methodologies, 2018/9
Major Project Proposal for the Degree
Of
BEng (Hons) Computer Science
[SID Number]
Submission Date: May 3rd 2019
School of Computing and Information Science,
Faculty of Science and Engineering,
Anglia Ruskin University,
East Road, Cambridge CB1 1PT
1

MOD002602 Computing Research Methodologies, 2018/9
Part 1: Basic Information (600 words, 20 marks)
SID Number Fill this area
Programme of Study, e.g. BEng (Hons)
Computer Science BEng (Hons) Computer Science
Proposed Project Title Security Procedures for Data Protection in Cloud
Computing
Proposed Research Question(s)
 What are the security techniques to the
prevention of unauthorized data access within
a cloud?
 What are the expected major security
challenges to Cloud Computing?
 What can be recommended for effective
handling of the expected security problem
with respect to Cloud Computing?
Proposed Research Hypothesis/Hypotheses Data protection in cloud computing using multiple
security procedures.
Three or More Topic Keywords (e.g., from ACM
Classification System in Appendix A) Techniques; Challenges; Cloud Computing; Security.
Technical Skills/Expertise Needed for this
Project (e.g., Programming Languages,
Mathematical/Statistical Methods, Network
Simulation Tools, Electronics, Database Design)
RSA algorithm; Hadoop Distributed File System;
Intrusion detection; Database creation using IEEE
Xplore; Boolean ANDs and ORs implementation during
identification; Appropriate charts for Data/Results
visualization; Statistical methods for Hypothesis
testing; Human Participants association.
Which skills/expertise do you already have that
this project will capitalise upon?
Programming; Working with human participants;
Statistics; Working knowledge of Cloud Computing.
Which of these skills do you need to learn
about? (note: should be realistic here)
ITU guidelines to security threats in cloud computing
environments.
Resources Needed for this Project (Hardware,
Software, Experts/Collaborators)
Standard Computers; Eucalyptus software for private
Cloud architecture; VMware for Virtualization
infrastructure; IEEE Xplore for database sorting (SLR);
Statistical method for hypothesis testing; Association
2

MOD002602 Computing Research Methodologies, 2018/9
with human participants.
Public Data Source(s)/Data Sets to be Used for
this Project (if any), e.g., from Appendix B.
https://github.com/google/cluster-data/
Provides Cluster workload traces, executed on Google
compute cells. (Over 12,500 machine-cell)
https://www.edx.org/learn/cloud-computing
Materials provided for efficient learning environment
from beginner to advanced levels of cloud computing.
https://cloud.google.com/cloud-console/
Integrated cloud platform from Google (Management
Console).
Do You Already Have Access to the Resources/
Data Sources Required? If No, When and How
will you Obtain Them?
Yes. Access of Google Cloud Platform Console, Google
cluster workload and edx.org databases are costless
and consists of Creative Common licenses, demanding
only, for the creators to receive appropriate
attribution and, utilization of databases are non-
commercial. Both of the requirements are subjected
to be satisfied.
Will your Study require Human Participants? If
so, for what purpose?
Yes. The study will require human participants (Cloud
Experts) who will be designated to provide their
insights and opinions on challenges of cloud
computing, through a survey.
If Human Participants will be required: (i) How
many, and why this number? (ii) where do you
plan to recruit them from?
Total number of participants required is upto 20.
Moreover, >20 demands no elaborated checks for
outliers/non-complaint participants.
Are there any Ethical Implications to your
Study? If so, what are they?
Human participation is an essential element to the
research growth. At stage 1, application form will be
filled and submitted to the School Research Ethics
Panel (SREP) before collecting any data.
Pressurizing individuals to participate in the survey is
strictly prohibited. Participant’s consent (study the
Participant Information Sheet and approval through a
signature on the Consent Form) should be informative
and concise. Participating individuals are permitted to
withdraw their participation at any time, during or
after the study. Storing personal and confidential data
of the participants is also prohibited (as their data will
be stored under a Unique Identification Number.
Members can use this number to view or delete their
own profile, from the respective database). Data will
be collected on campus only.
In the full Stage 2 application for University Ethics
Panel, potentially alarming/disappointing images will
be mentioned and will be kept under thorough
scrutiny and consideration. Any disorder or phobia
(Example: arachnophobia, anthropophobia,
agoraphobia) of the participants must be known and
3

MOD002602 Computing Research Methodologies, 2018/9
shall be excluded, accordingly.
Has Applicable Anglia Ruskin Ethics Training
been Completed? (yes or no) Yes; Epigeum Certification Provided.
Who are the Potential Beneficiaries of the
Project?
Cloud computing is an essential element to most of
the industrial and organizational sector. The following
project will enhance the areas of-
 Protection against Distributed Denial of
Service attacks (DDoS). Ideas of absorbing,
monitoring and dispersing such attacks are
idealized to minimize the risks.
 Protection of sensitive information and
transactions in organizations using security
protocols (Data security).
 Management and maintenance of enhanced
infrastructures for compliance, and also
personal and financial data protection.
What Potential Impact on these Beneficiaries
might the Project Have if it goes well?
If the results are turned out to be correct and, in-
accordance to the desirable outcome, organizations
and academic institutions will be able to identify and
strengthen their cloud computed technological
sectors against the related threats.
What are the risks associated with this
proposal? e.g., insufficient human volunteers,
non-functioning application, idea too ambitious
to complete in available time
1. Collection of sufficient number of human
participants may be observed to be a difficult
task.
2. Volunteers may also be found to be non-
compliant. Also, they may not understand the
instructions properly.
3. Required software could run into errors and
bugs, during the preliminary stages of the
project. This needs to be mitigated, as there is
a limited amount of time.
Suggested Supervisors from List Provided on
Canvas, and Brief Justification. List three in
order of preference.
1. Fill this area
2. Fill this area
3. Fill this area
4

MOD002602 Computing Research Methodologies, 2018/9
Part 2: Outline Methods (750 words, 25 marks)
Outline of Methods to be used for Data
Collection/Processing
(≈250 words)
For the following project, Systematic Literature Review
is appointed as the primary research method, whereas
interviews and surveys are considered to be the
secondary research method.
System Literature Review is the process of
identification, evaluation and interpretation of all
available research studies, relevant to specific research
topic, question or interest phenomenon.1 The review is
conducted with respect to a predefined search strategy.
SLR is generally undertaken for summarizing the
existing evidence, spotting the gaps in the present
research and, contributing it to the framework of the
new research activities.2 For the following research
work, systematic and guideline-based process by
kitchenham3, has been adopted. The review is
conducted in three phases: Planning (Identification of
the need and developing a review protocol); Conducting
(Selection of quality assessment, data extraction,
primary studies and data synthesis); Reporting
(Reporting of the results and documentations).
The secondary research method is Survey. In this
quantitative research type, respondents (experts) will
be selected under minimum experience criteria
between 1 to 31 years in Cloud Computing and, will be
provided a standardized questionnaire. Electronic
survey is undertaken for the respective research
method analysis. Participants will be offered
questionnaire via electronic mails.
Also, for the interviews, narrative and comparative
analysis will be conducted. Narrative method will
synthesize of non-quantitative method, appointing to
the extracted information that would be tabulated for
easy review. Framework of the method will consist of
the development of a theory, preliminary synthesis,
exploring relationships in data and assess to the
robustness of synthesis. For the Comparative analysis,
the relation and dissimilarities of the study’s contexts
will be evaluated.
1 O.P. Brereton, B.A. Kitchenham, D. Turner Budgen, M. Khalil, Lessons from applying the systematic literature review
process within the software engineering domain, Journal of Systems and Software 80 (4) (2017) 571–583.
2 M. Jørgensen, K. Moløkken-Østvold How large are software cost overruns? A review of the 1994 CHAOS report
Information and Software Technology, 48 (2016), pp. 297-301
3 L.M. Pickard, B.A. Kitchenham, P. Jones, Combining empirical results in software engineering, Information and
Software Technology 40 (14) (2015) 811–821.
5

MOD002602 Computing Research Methodologies, 2018/9
Outline of Methods to be used for
Presentation/Visualisation of the Data
Collected/Results.
(≈250 words)
For the described SLR methodology, selected papers
will be sorted in relevance to the respective project
title. For filtering out the papers which do not consist of
security challenges, attacks and mitigation technique
information with respect to cloud computing, the
processes of inclusion and exclusion (by search string)
will be evaluated from reputed databases. Keywords
are the basis of the search strings and, are constructed
via Boolean ORs and ANDs implementation. The
resulted data will produce the currently researched
challenges and issues to cloud computing. The data will
be visualized in an architectural format using the
software VMware.
The method of electronic survey through e-mails will be
requesting 20 cloud experts to participate in the survey.
Afterwards, the questionnaire will start with expert’s
name, organization’s name, expert’s experience in the
field and security. Expert’s information data will be
stored in a tabular format. The results will be sorted
according to the commonality of the reported
challenges and also the other factors included.
Moreover, the Reporting review will consist of both the
results from Survey and SLR. To the SLR, empirical
evidence of number of papers published (year-wise) to
the Cloud computing security will also be shown in a
graphical manner. The identified security issues which
would be obtained from both, may contain similarity.
They will be analyzed accordingly. The identified
threats will be converted to attributes and will be
visualized in a chart figure. Same will also be followed
for the survey/interview. Also, the research will provide
the mitigation procedures (as reported by the surveyed
cloud experts).
Outline of Methods that will be used to
Demonstrate the Efficacy/Significance of
Artifact/Model/Results Obtained? (e.g.,
Statistical Design, Usability Questionnaire,
Empirical Test/Performance Framework)
(≈250 words)
During the presentation of the empirical evidence of
SLR (in a year-wise format) recorded within the time-
period of last 10 years, the graph will show the
distinctive and alike property of the research from other
published materials. The objective is to provide a
material that has not been previously discussed. The
exploitation of any databases of SpringerLink, IEEE
Xplore or Scopus will enhance the search strategy of
Systematic Literature Review. Moreover, IEEE Xplore is
implemented in the following research.
The current study will produce effective results with the
correct implementation after the SLR procedure. The
standard set of questionnaire will test the knowledge of
the cloud experts. Accordingly, the suitable candidates
6