Chapter 5.3: Data Security in Cloud Computing

Cloud Computing has come into reality as a new IT infrastructure built on top of a series of techniques such as distributed computing, virtualization, etc. Besides the many benefits that it can bring forth, Cloud Computing also introduces the difficulty of protecting the security of data outsourced by cloud users. This chapter will first study the basic concepts and analyze the essentials of data security issues pertaining to Cloud Computing. Then we elaborate on each issue by discussing its nature and existing solutions if available. Specifically, we will emphasize on issues of protecting data confidentiality/integrity/availability, securing data access and auditing, and enforcing the regulations and compliances regarding to data security and privacy.