Secure file sharing mechanism and key management for mobile cloud computing environment

Abstract

Objectives: The use of the mobile devices in cloud computing environment is susceptible to various kinds of attacks like, unauthorized access, account/service hijacking, data breach and malicious insider. These vulnerabilities make the cloud environment unsafe to share and store data for mobile users. Methods/Analysis: In this paper, we propose a secure file storing and retrieving mechanism to avoid the limitations in existing systems like, file encryption, access rights and key management. Asymmetric key cryptography is utilized to protect the data and retrieval of the data with minimal access rights. Findings: Privacy of the mobile users are protected from the malicious insiders along with the preservation of confidentiality and integrity of the files being accessed. The comparative analysis of different public key infrastructure algorithms utilizing the proposed methodology for key computation, encryption, decryption and resource utilization shows the performance of each algorithm for different file sizes. Application/Improvement: The proposed system provides user access management, key management, encryption and decryption of files through trusted third party to make the data secured in mobile cloud environment.