Cloud audits and privacy risks

Abstract

In cloud computing users are giving up control over resources such as storage. Lacking transparency of cloud services (e.g. data access and data lifecycle reports) is an important trust issue, that hinders a more wide-spread adoption of cloud computing. Giving the customer of cloud services more information about data usage, compliance test reports and accordance to best-practices make the cloud more transparent. Reporting about such verifications is the main objective of cloud audits and is performed by third party auditors (TPAs). However, public auditing by TPAs can introduce new privacy problems. In this paper, a survey of current cloud audit privacy problems is given and techniques are shown how they can be addressed. Also, requirements for a privacy-aware public audit system are discussed. © 2013 Springer-Verlag.