Cloud privacy and security issues beyond technology: championing the cause of accountability

Cloud computing provides IT service providers increased efficiency of resource utilization while enabling consumers to benefit from innovative advantages like access to up-to-date IT resources and low upfront investment. A significant hindrance to adoption of cloud computing is the lack of trust arising from worries over privacy and security when data resources of cloud service consumers are handled by third parties. A key factor in fostering cloud privacy and security is accountability, which increases trust by obligating an entity to be answerable for its actions. This paper uses a hermeneutic literature review to investigate (i) the prevailing methods and strategies of fostering privacy and security through accountability, (ii) the key actors in championing cloud accountability and (iii) the key barriers to cloud accountability. This literature review provides insight into current practices associated with championing cloud accountability and contributes to cloud service provider awareness of ways to improve cloud computing trustworthiness

A Conceptual Framework for Accountability in Cloud Computing Service Provision

This paper uses a comprehensive review of the academic and professional literature in relation to accountability in the area of cloud computing service provision. It identifies four key conceptual factors that are necessary for an organisation to be considered as accountable. The four factors were found to be: responsibility, assurance, transparency and remediation. A key finding of the paper is that in order to be considered as an accountable cloud service provider, all four factors need to be implemented and be demonstrable by the organisation

Active data-centric framework for data protection in cloud environment

Cloud computing is an emerging evolutionary computing model that provides highly scalable services over highspeed Internet on a pay-as-usage model. However, cloud-based solutions still have not been widely deployed in some sensitive areas, such as banking and healthcare. The lack of widespread development is related to users&rsquo; concern that their confidential data or privacy would leak out in the cloud&rsquo;s outsourced environment. To address this problem, we propose a novel active data-centric framework to ultimately improve the transparency and accountability of actual usage of the users&rsquo; data in cloud. Our data-centric framework emphasizes &ldquo;active&rdquo; feature which packages the raw data with active properties that enforce data usage with active defending and protection capability. To achieve the active scheme, we devise the Triggerable Data File Structure (TDFS). Moreover, we employ the zero-knowledge proof scheme to verify the request&rsquo;s identification without revealing any vital information. Our experimental outcomes demonstrate the efficiency, dependability, and scalability of our framework.<br /

Core elements in information security accountability in the cloud

This paper proposes 9 core elements of information security accountability in the area of cloud computing. The core elements were determined via a series of 18 case studies with Omani government organisations that were actively using and/or providing cloud computing. 36 interviews were conducted and then analysed using a grounded theory methodology As a result of the analysis, responsibility, transparency, assurance, remediation, accountability support environment, flexible change process, collaboration, mechanisms and commitment to external criteria. The research also found that the emphasis on specific core elements is context-dependent and that there was considerable variation in emphasis amongst the case study organisations

Enhancing Cloud Security and Privacy: The Cloud Audit Problem

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Unified Model for Data Security -- A Position Paper

One of the most crucial components of modern Information Technology (IT) systems is data. It can be argued that the majority of IT systems are built to collect, store, modify, communicate and use data, enabling different data stakeholders to access and use it to achieve different business objectives. The confidentiality, integrity, availability, audit ability, privacy, and quality of the data is of paramount concern for end-users ranging from ordinary consumers to multi-national companies. Over the course of time, different frameworks have been proposed and deployed to provide data security. Many of these previous paradigms were specific to particular domains such as military or media content providers, while in other cases they were generic to different verticals within an industry. There is a much needed push for a holistic approach to data security instead of the current bespoke approaches. The age of the Internet has witnessed an increased ease of sharing data with or without authorisation. These scenarios have created new challenges for traditional data security. In this paper, we study the evolution of data security from the perspective of past proposed frameworks, and present a novel Unified Model for Data Security (UMDS). The discussed UMDS reduces the friction from several cross-domain challenges, and has the functionality to possibly provide comprehensive data security to data owners and privileged users

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

STRATUS: Towards returning data control to cloud users

When we upload or create data into the cloud or the web, we immediately lose control of our data. Most of the time, we will not know where the data will be stored, or how many copies of our files are there. Worse, we are unable to know and stop malicious insiders from accessing the possibly sensitive data. Despite being transferred across and within clouds over encrypted channels, data often has to be decrypted within the database for it to be processed. Exposing the data at some point in the cloud to a few privileged users is undoubtedly a vendor-centric approach, and hinges on the trust relationships data owners have with their cloud service providers. A recent example of the abuse of the trust relationship is the high-profile Edward Snowden case. In this paper, we propose a user-centric approach which returns data control to the data owners – empowering users with data provenance, transparency and auditability, homomorphic encryption, situation awareness, revocation, attribution and data resilience. We also cover key elements of the concept of user data control. Finally, we introduce how we attempt to address these issues via the New Zealand Ministry of Business Innovation and Employment (MBIE)-funded STRATUS (Security Technologies Returning Accountability, Trust and User-centric Services in the Cloud) research project