A Cloud Authentication Protocol using One-Time Pad

There is a significant increase in the amount of data breaches in corporate servers in the cloud environments. This includes username and password compromise in the cloud and account hijacking, thus leading to severe vulnerabilities of the cloud service provisioning. Traditional authentication schemes rely on the users to use their credentials to gain access to cloud service. However once the credential is compromised, the attacker will gain access to the cloud service easily. This paper proposes a novel scheme that does not require the user to present his credentials, and yet is able to prove ownership of access to the cloud service using a variant of zero-knowledge proof. A challenge-response protocol is devised to authenticate the user, requiring the user to compute a one-time pad (OTP) to authenticate himself to the server without revealing password to the server. A prototype has been implemented to facilitate the authentication of the user when accessing Dropbox, and the experiment results showed that the overhead incurred is insignificant

Context-Awareness Enhances 5G Multi-Access Edge Computing Reliability

The fifth generation (5G) mobile telecommunication network is expected to support Multi- Access Edge Computing (MEC), which intends to distribute computation tasks and services from the central cloud to the edge clouds. Towards ultra-responsive, ultra-reliable and ultra-low-latency MEC services, the current mobile network security architecture should enable a more decentralized approach for authentication and authorization processes. This paper proposes a novel decentralized authentication architecture that supports flexible and low-cost local authentication with the awareness of context information of network elements such as user equipment and virtual network functions. Based on a Markov model for backhaul link quality, as well as a random walk mobility model with mixed mobility classes and traffic scenarios, numerical simulations have demonstrated that the proposed approach is able to achieve a flexible balance between the network operating cost and the MEC reliability.Comment: Accepted by IEEE Access on Feb. 02, 201

A comprehensive meta-analysis of cryptographic security mechanisms for cloud computing

The file attached to this record is the author's final peer reviewed version. The Publisher's final version can be found by following the DOI link.The concept of cloud computing offers measurable computational or information resources as a service over the Internet. The major motivation behind the cloud setup is economic benefits, because it assures the reduction in expenditure for operational and infrastructural purposes. To transform it into a reality there are some impediments and hurdles which are required to be tackled, most profound of which are security, privacy and reliability issues. As the user data is revealed to the cloud, it departs the protection-sphere of the data owner. However, this brings partly new security and privacy concerns. This work focuses on these issues related to various cloud services and deployment models by spotlighting their major challenges. While the classical cryptography is an ancient discipline, modern cryptography, which has been mostly developed in the last few decades, is the subject of study which needs to be implemented so as to ensure strong security and privacy mechanisms in today’s real-world scenarios. The technological solutions, short and long term research goals of the cloud security will be described and addressed using various classical cryptographic mechanisms as well as modern ones. This work explores the new directions in cloud computing security, while highlighting the correct selection of these fundamental technologies from cryptographic point of view

Systematic Review on Security and Privacy Requirements in Edge Computing: State of the Art and Future Research Opportunities

Edge computing is a promising paradigm that enhances the capabilities of cloud computing. In order to continue patronizing the computing services, it is essential to conserve a good atmosphere free from all kinds of security and privacy breaches. The security and privacy issues associated with the edge computing environment have narrowed the overall acceptance of the technology as a reliable paradigm. Many researchers have reviewed security and privacy issues in edge computing, but not all have fully investigated the security and privacy requirements. Security and privacy requirements are the objectives that indicate the capabilities as well as functions a system performs in eliminating certain security and privacy vulnerabilities. The paper aims to substantially review the security and privacy requirements of the edge computing and the various technological methods employed by the techniques used in curbing the threats, with the aim of helping future researchers in identifying research opportunities. This paper investigate the current studies and highlights the following: (1) the classification of security and privacy requirements in edge computing, (2) the state of the art techniques deployed in curbing the security and privacy threats, (3) the trends of technological methods employed by the techniques, (4) the metrics used for evaluating the performance of the techniques, (5) the taxonomy of attacks affecting the edge network, and the corresponding technological trend employed in mitigating the attacks, and, (6) research opportunities for future researchers in the area of edge computing security and privacy

Exploratory study to explore the role of ICT in the process of knowledge management in an Indian business environment

In the 21st century and the emergence of a digital economy, knowledge and the knowledge base economy are rapidly growing. To effectively be able to understand the processes involved in the creating, managing and sharing of knowledge management in the business environment is critical to the success of an organization. This study builds on the previous research of the authors on the enablers of knowledge management by identifying the relationship between the enablers of knowledge management and the role played by information communication technologies (ICT) and ICT infrastructure in a business setting. This paper provides the findings of a survey collected from the four major Indian cities (Chennai, Coimbatore, Madurai and Villupuram) regarding their views and opinions about the enablers of knowledge management in business setting. A total of 80 organizations participated in the study with 100 participants in each city. The results show that ICT and ICT infrastructure can play a critical role in the creating, managing and sharing of knowledge in an Indian business environment