Client/server model of data privacy using extended playfair cipher for SaaS applications on the cloud

Abstract

Cloud Computing is a paradigm of distributed computing that delivers on-demand and utility-based services to its customers. It provides a set of shared computing resources such as networking, servers, storage, and applications in the form of services to an organization or an individual. The major benefits of cloud computing include on-demand self-service and cost-effectiveness. For the customer, there is no up-front cost for setting up and running the applications on the cloud. Despite the benefits provided by various cloud services, the outsourcing of data storage and computation raise many new security issues. One of such security issues that have to be addressed before uploading our sensitive data to the cloud is data privacy. With the cloud model, end-users lose control over the physical location of data, because data will be stored and processed elsewhere on the globe and not in the local computer. Hence, we need an algorithm for encrypting the data that can be stored and retrieved from a database managed by the public cloud.