Implementation of Secure and Efficient Model to Control Over Data Sharing in the Cloud Computing

Cloud computing is a rapidly growing segment of the IT industry that will bring new service opportunities with significant cost reduction in IT capital expenditures and operating costs, on-demand capacity, and pay-per-use pricing models for IT service providers. Among these services are Software-as-a-Service, Platform-as-a-Service, Infrastructure-as– a-Service, Communication-as-a-Service, Monitoring-as-aService, and Storage-as-a-Service. Storage-as-a-Service provides data owners a cost effective service to store massive data and handles efficient routine data backup by utilizing the vast storage capacity offered by a cloud computing infrastructure. However, shifting data storage to cloud computing infrastructure introduces several security threats to data as cloud providers may have complete control on the computing infrastructure that underpins the services. These security threats include unauthorized data access, compromise data integrity and confidentiality, and less direct control over data for data owner. The current literatures propose several approaches for storing and sharing data in the cloud environments. However, these approaches are either applicable to specific data formats or encryption techniques. In this paper, unlike previous studies, we introduce a secure and efficient model that allows the data owners to have full control over data sharing in the cloud environment. In addition, it prevents cloud providers from revealing data to unauthorized users. The proposed model can be used in different IT areas, with different data and encryption techniques, to provide secure data sharing for fixed and mobile computing devices. Keywordscloud computing; cloud storage; data sharing model; data access control; data owner full control, cloud storage as a service; data encryption