(PDF) Cloud Computing Assignment

Cloud Cryptography - A Security Aspect
Felix Bentil
Department of Computer Applications
Lovely Professional University, LPU
Jalandhar, India
Isaac Lartey
Department of Computer Applications
Lovely Professional University, LPU
Jalandhar, India
Abstract- If all of the top levels of security fail, the final and
most critical tier, data security, must not fail [1]. By breaching
this layer of defence, the CIA's triad principles of
confidentiality, integrity, and availability are undermined.
However, increasing security reduces the performance of the
system and usability. This paper addresses the fundamentals
of cloud computing as well as its key challenge: security. This
paper examines a variety of cryptographic methods used by
major cloud providers. It proposes an alternative algorithm
for encrypting data in transit from the user to the cloud in
order to ensure data security and defend against Man-in-the-
Middle (MitM) attacks like sniffing. The paper concludes by
urging further study into the proposed cryptography
algorithm in order to ensure data protection and privacy in all
three data states.
Keywords: Ciphertext, Cloud Provider, Cryptography,
Encryption, Decryption, MitM
I. INTRODUCTION
Cloud computing is a framework for offering on-demand
network access to a pooled pool of configurable computing
resources (e.g., networks, servers, storage, software, and
services) that can be quickly provisioned and released with
limited maintenance activity or service provider
involvement [7]. In cloud computing, resources are
abstracted and virtualized from the cloud provider's IT
infrastructure and made accessible to the customer.Cloud
infrastructure provides various advantages to cloud
consumers and other core stakeholders. Some of these
benefits are access to data stored on the cloud regardless of
the location, pay-on-demand basis, flexibility and
elasticity, and economic benefits by saving the company
from buying hardware and other IT infrastructure
[11].Despite all these benefits, cloud computing has its fair
share of concerns. The main concern in the cloud
computing industry is security [10]. The first and most
obvious concern is privacy considerations[1]. That is if
another party is housing all your data, how do you know
that it’s safe and secure? Since the internet powers cloud
computing, data migrated to the cloud could be assessed by
anyone from anywhere when security is breached. Hackers
can go to any extent in order to compromise data [3].From
selling your confidential information to rivals and those on
the dark web to encrypting your storage and data unless
you pay them off, or they can simply delete anything to
harm your company and defend their actions based on
ideological views [1].This will have a massive effect on the
company's reputation, as well as depleting the interest
consumers have in the company, resulting in customer loss
[11].Whatever the case, hackers are a serious concern for
your data managed on a cloud. Because your data is held
on someone else's computers, you may be at the mercy of
whatever security measures they support [1]. Organizations
do not have much control over what happens to their data
as everything on the cloud including security is managed
by the cloud provider.
II. DATA SECURITY IN CLOUD
The numerous benefits that come with cloud computing
have enticed many organizations and governments agencies
to move their sensitive data to the cloud [11]. This avails an
opportunity for attackers to also exploit the vulnerabilities
in cloud computing and breach the security of the cloud.
Fuelled by different agendas, they can hurt organizations
through data theft, perform man- in-middle attacks, and
compromise the integrity of data [6]. Many cloud giants
like Google, Amazon, and Microsoft have adopted various
measures to protect data stored on their cloud platforms by
their clients [11]. But data should be protected against
unauthorized access in all three data states (data at rest,
data in transition, and data being processed). Some
organizations are aware of these security issues and encrypt
their sensitive data before migrating it to the cloud. This
provides another level of security from the client’s side for
their data in transit.
III. CRYPTOGRAPHY
Cryptography is a method of concealing information in
order to hide it from unauthorised users [10]. Transmitted
data is obscured and rendered in a ciphertext format that is
unreadable and incomprehensible to an unauthorised user.
A key is utilized to transform cipher text to plain text. This
key is kept confidential and only authorised entities have
access to it [6]. Encryption is one of the safest ways to
avoid MitM attacks because even if the transmitted data
gets intercepted, the attacker would be unable to decipher
it. In cloud cryptography, there are two major types of
encryption algorithms. These are: symmetric and
asymmetric encryption algorithms [8].
A. Symmetric Encryption Algorithm (Secret Key
Cryptography)
Symmetric Encryption Algorithm uses one key for both
encryption and decryption [8]. Examples of this encryption
algorithm a briefly discussed below.
• Data Encryption Standard (DES)
DES is a standard for data encryption that uses a secret key
for both encryption and decryption. It adopts a 64-bit secret
key, of which 56 bits are randomly generated and the other
8 bits are used for error detection. It employs a data
encryption algorithm (DEA), a secret block cipher
International Journal of Engineering Research & Technology (IJERT)
ISSN: 2278-0181http://www.ijert.org
IJERTV10IS050258
(This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.)
Published by :
www.ijert.org
Vol. 10 Issue 05, May-2021
448