IET SECURITY SERIES 05

Data Security in Cloud

Computing
Also available:

Age Factors in Biometric Processing, M. Fairhurst (Editor)

978-1-84919-502-7
Iris and Periocular Biometrics, C. Rathgeb, C. Busch (Editors)
978-1-78561-168-1
Engineering Secure Internet of Things Systems, B. Aziz, A. Arenas, B. Crispo
978-1-78561-053-0

Forthcoming Titles:

Mobile Biometrics, G. Guo, H. Wechsler (Editors)

978-1-78561-095-0
Data Security in Cloud
Computing
Edited by
Vimal Kumar, Sivadon Chaisiri and Ryan Ko

The Institution of Engineering and Technology

Published by The Institution of Engineering and Technology, London, United Kingdom

The Institution of Engineering and Technology is registered as a Charity in England &

Wales (no. 211014) and Scotland (no. SC038698).

© The Institution of Engineering and Technology 2017

First published 2017

This publication is copyright under the Berne Convention and the Universal Copyright
Convention. All rights reserved. Apart from any fair dealing for the purposes of research
or private study, or criticism or review, as permitted under the Copyright, Designs and
Patents Act 1988, this publication may be reproduced, stored or transmitted, in any
form or by any means, only with the prior permission in writing of the publishers, or in
the case of reprographic reproduction in accordance with the terms of licences issued
by the Copyright Licensing Agency. Enquiries concerning reproduction outside those
terms should be sent to the publisher at the undermentioned address:

The Institution of Engineering and Technology

Michael Faraday House
Six Hills Way, Stevenage
Herts SG1 2AY, United Kingdom

www.theiet.org

While the authors and publisher believe that the information and guidance given in this
work are correct, all parties must rely upon their own skill and judgement when making
use of them. Neither the authors nor publisher assumes any liability to anyone for any
loss or damage caused by any error or omission in the work, whether such an error or
omission is the result of negligence or any other cause. Any and all such liability
is disclaimed.

The moral rights of the authors to be identified as authors of this work have been
asserted by them in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

A catalogue record for this product is available from the British Library

ISBN 978-1-78561-220-6 (hardback)

ISBN 978-1-78561-221-3 (PDF)

Typeset in India by MPS Limited

Printed in the UK by CPI Group (UK) Ltd, Croydon
 Contents

Preface xiii

1 A data-centric view of cloud security 1

Vimal Kumar, Sivadon Chaisiri, and Ryan Ko
Abstract 1
1.1 Introduction 1
1.2 Definitions and terminology 2
1.3 Need for new methods 4
1.3.1 Cryptography 6
1.3.2 Data provenance 7
1.3.3 Privacy and security laws and regulations 7
1.4 Classification of data security issues in cloud computing 8
1.4.1 Data at rest 9
1.4.2 Data in use 10
1.4.3 Data in transit 11
1.4.4 Cross-cutting issues 12
1.5 Conclusion 13
References 13

2 Nomad: a framework for ensuring data confidentiality in

mission-critical cloud-based applications 19
Mamadou H. Diallo, Michael August, Roger Hallman,
Megan Kline, Henry Au, and Scott M. Slayback
2.1 Introduction 20
2.2 Nomad framework overview 22
2.2.1 Client management service 23
2.2.2 Cloud storage service 24
2.2.3 Operational overview 24
2.3 Homomorphic encryption background 27
2.3.1 BGV scheme 27
2.3.2 HElib 28
2.4 GPU-based acceleration of BGV FHE 29
2.5 Application: CallForFire 31
2.5.1 CallForFire operational workflow 32
2.6 Implementation 33
vi Data security in cloud computing

2.7 Experiments 34
2.7.1 Performance of the GPU-based parallelisation 34
2.7.2 CallForFire performance 37
2.8 Related work 38
2.9 Conclusion 39
2.10 Future research challenges 40
References 40

3 Preserving privacy in pre-classification volume

ray-casting of 3D images 45
Manoranjan Mohanty, Muhammad Rizwan Asghar, and
Giovanni Russello
Abstract 45
3.1 Introduction 45
3.2 Related work and background 47
3.2.1 Encrypted domain rendering 47
3.2.2 3D images 48
3.2.3 Volume ray-casting 48
3.3 System model 50
3.4 Proposed approach 52
3.5 Solution details 54
3.5.1 Data preparation 55
3.5.2 Ray-dependent rendering 56
3.5.3 Composition 57
3.6 Construction details 57
3.7 Security analysis 59
3.8 Implementation and experiment 61
3.9 Conclusions 63
References 63

4 Multiprocessor system-on-chip for processing data in

cloud computing 65
Arnab Kumar Biswas, S. K. Nandy, and Ranjani Narayan
4.1 Introduction 65
4.2 Current approaches to secure MPSoC cloud platforms 67
4.3 Threat model 68
4.3.1 Router attack description 68
4.3.2 The malicious effects of router attack 69
4.3.3 Examples of router attack 70
4.4 Countermeasure for unauthorized access attack 71
4.4.1 Runtime monitor 72
4.4.2 Restart monitor 75
4.4.3 Ejection address checker 77
4.4.4 Simulation and synthesis results 78
 Contents vii

4.5 Countermeasure for misrouting attack 81

4.5.1 Local monitoring module 82
4.5.2 Intermediate manager 83
4.5.3 Simulation and synthesis results 84
4.6 Summary, future research directions, and further readings 84
Acknowledgments 85
References 85
5 Distributing encoded data for private processing in the cloud 89
Mark A. Will and Ryan K. L. Ko
Abstract 89
5.1 Introduction 89
5.2 Summary of distributed encoding and related work 90
5.2.1 Encoding 90
5.2.2 Distribution 92
5.2.3 Custom hardware processors 94
5.3 String searching 94
5.3.1 Overview 94
5.3.2 Removing special characters 96
5.3.3 Approximate string searching 96
5.3.4 False positives 96
5.3.5 Building the search index 96
5.3.6 Distributed index 97
5.3.7 Results for searching over a document 98
5.3.8 Summary 99
5.4 Arbitrary computation 99
5.4.1 Overview 99
5.4.2 Distributed NAND Gate 101
5.4.3 Addition 103
5.4.4 Multiplication 104
5.4.5 Conditional 105
5.4.6 Proof-of-concept addition and multiplication 105
5.5 Security analysis 107
5.5.1 One set of the distributed data 107
5.5.2 Breaking into all systems 109
5.6 Little computational and network overhead 110
5.7 Concluding remarks 111
Acknowledgements 112
References 112
6 Data protection and mobility management for cloud 117
Dat Dang, Doan Hoang, and Priyadarsi Nanda
Abstract 117
Keyword 117
viii Data security in cloud computing

6.1 Introduction 118

6.2 Data mobility 119
6.2.1 Components of a data mobility model 120
6.2.2 Data mobility scenarios 121
6.3 Security mechanisms for data-in-transit 124
6.3.1 Geographic location-based mechanisms 125
6.3.2 Data-mobility-based policy and encryption
mechanisms 125
6.3.3 Binding user and data location 126
6.3.4 Protecting cloud data using trusted third-party
technologies 127
6.3.5 Data mobility based on location register
database 127
6.4 A trust-oriented data protection framework 127
6.4.1 Mobility management model 129
6.4.2 Trust-oriented data protection framework 133
6.4.3 Implementation 134
6.4.4 Evaluation and results 138
6.5 Discussion and conclusion 145
6.5.1 Discussion 145
6.5.2 Conclusion 146
References 146

7 Understanding software-defined perimeter 151

Chenkang Tang, Vimal Kumar, and Sivadon Chaisiri
Abstract 151
7.1 Introduction 151
7.2 Background and related work 152
7.2.1 Firewalls 153
7.2.2 Virtual private network 154
7.2.3 Public key infrastructure 155
7.2.4 Transport layer security 155
7.2.5 Other SDP-like solutions 155
7.3 Software-defined perimeter 156
7.3.1 Overview of the software-defined perimeter
framework 156
7.3.2 Software-defined perimeter architecture 157
7.3.3 Software-defined perimeter configurations 158
7.3.4 Software-defined perimeter workflow 158
7.3.5 Software-defined perimeter protocol 160
7.4 SDP security 166
7.5 Conclusion 167
References 168
 Contents ix

8 Security, trust, and privacy for cloud computing in

Transportation Cyber-Physical Systems 171
Wenjia Li, Jonathan Voris, and N. Sertac Artan
Abstract 171
8.1 Introduction 172
8.2 Transportation CPS 173
8.2.1 Vehicular and transportation networks 173
8.2.2 Vehicle-to-everything communication 173
8.2.3 Intra-vehicle Communication 175
8.3 Transportation cloud computing 176
8.3.1 Transportation cloud computing service
taxonomy 176
8.4 TCPS attack surfaces 178
8.4.1 Modern intra-vehicle data networks and the cloud 178
8.4.2 Attack surfaces of future cloud-based V2X
transportation networks 180
8.5 TCPS security mechanisms 181
8.5.1 Trust management for TCPS 182
8.5.2 Privacy for TCPS 186
8.6 Conclusion 187
References 188

9 Review of data leakage attack techniques in cloud systems 197

Zirak Allaf and Mo Adda
Abstract 197
9.1 Introduction 197
9.2 Data state and vulnerabilities 198
9.2.1 Data-At-Rest 198
9.2.2 Data-In-Motion 199
9.2.3 Data-In-Use 199
9.3 Core technology vulnerabilities in cloud computing 200
9.3.1 Web technology 200
9.3.2 Virtualisation technology 200
9.3.3 Cryptography 201
9.4 Side and covert channel attack classification 201
9.4.1 Targeted data types 202
9.4.2 Source of leakage 202
9.4.3 Types of channel attacks 205
9.4.4 Techniques 207
9.4.5 A generic attack model 207
9.5 Mitigation countermeasures 210
9.5.1 OS level 211
9.5.2 Application level 211
x Data security in cloud computing

9.5.3 Hardware level 211

9.5.4 Analysis or profile-based detection 212
9.6 Conclusion 213
References 213

10 Cloud computing and personal data processing:

sorting-out legal requirements 219
Ioulia Konstantinou and Irene Kamara
Abstract 219
Keywords 220
10.1 Introduction: the emergence of cloud and the significance of a
secure cloud 220
10.2 Cloud computing and the extra-territorial effect of EU data
protection law 221
10.3 The EU legal framework on data protection 222
10.3.1 The Data Protection Directive 95/46/EC 223
10.3.2 The new General Data Protection Regulation 223
10.4 Data controller, data processor and cloud computing actors:
assigning roles and responsibilities 224
10.4.1 Cloud client and cloud service provider 225
10.4.2 Sub-contractors 226
10.5 Duties and responsibilities of the cloud actors 228
10.5.1 Compliance with the general personal data processing
principles 228
10.5.2 Technical and organisational measures of data protection
and data security 230
10.5.3 Data protection impact assessments in cloud computing 234
10.5.4 Audits and certifications 234
10.6 Data flows and appropriate safeguards 235
10.6.1 Adequacy decisions 235
10.6.2 Alternative ways for data transfers by means of ‘appropri-
ate safeguards’ 236
10.7 Conclusions 238
References 239

11 The Waikato Data Privacy Matrix 243

Craig Scoon and Ryan K. L. Ko
Abstract 243
11.1 Introduction 243
11.2 Background 244
11.2.1 Justification 244
11.2.2 Cloud computing 245
11.2.3 NSA leaks 246
11.2.4 PRISM 247
 Contents xi

11.2.5 Trans-national agreements 247

11.2.6 Safe harbor to privacy shield 247
11.2.7 General data protection regulation 249
11.3 Legal cases 250
11.3.1 Schrems v. Data Protection Commissioner 250
11.3.2 Google Spain v. AEPD and Mario Costeja Gonzålez 250
11.3.3 Apple v. FBI 251
11.3.4 The right to be forgotten concept 252
11.4 Related work in legal alignment 252
11.4.1 DLA Piper 252
11.4.2 Forrester Global Heat Map 253
11.4.3 International Data Protection Legislation Matrix 253
11.4.4 Baker & McKenzie’s Global Privacy Handbook 253
11.5 Proposed solution 253
11.5.1 Data privacy matrix road map 254
11.6 Concluding remarks 255
11.6.1 Vision 255
References 255

12 Data provenance in cloud 261

Alan Yu Shyang Tan, Sivadon Chaisiri, Ryan Ko Kok Leong,
Geoff Holmes, and Bill Rogers
Abstract 261
12.1 Data provenance and its application 261
12.1.1 What is data provenance? 261
12.1.2 Applying data provenance to data security 262
12.2 Data provenance in cloud 263
12.2.1 Scope of the discussion 263
12.2.2 Log files is not provenance 263
12.3 Acquiring data provenance from cloud 265
12.3.1 Active provenance collection 265
12.3.2 Reconstructing provenance 268
12.4 Conclusion and future challenges 270
References 271

13 Security visualization for cloud computing: an overview 277

Jeffery Garae, Ryan K. L. Ko, and Mark Apperley
Abstract 277
13.1 Introduction 277
13.1.1 Motivation and objectives for this chapter 278
13.1.2 Chapter outline 279
13.2 Background: security visualization and data security 280
13.2.1 Security visualization for data security 280
xii Data security in cloud computing

13.2.2 The need for security visualization 281

13.3 A security visualization standardization model 282
13.3.1 Effective security visualization approaches 282
13.3.2 Security Visualization Standard (SCeeL-VisT) 283
13.4 Security visualization intelligence framework 285
13.4.1 Security Visualization as a Cloud Service 285
13.4.2 Data Provenance as a Security Visualization Service 286
13.5 Security visualization intelligence model 288
13.5.1 Bitcoin visualization 288
13.5.2 Threat intelligence visualization 290
13.5.3 ForensicTMO – analytic tool 291
13.6 Concluding remarks 292
References 292

Index 297
 Preface

It has been about a decade since the first introduction of cloud computing concepts
and business models. Despite the technology maturing and cloud evolving from a
‘buzzword’ into an integral component utilised by almost all organisations linked to
the Internet, one thing has not changed: the concerns about data security in cloud com-
puting. Compared to traditional information technology paradigms, cloud computing
is complex, multi-tiered and large scale. Cloud computing inherits the problems of
the traditional paradigms, but due to the above-mentioned characteristics it also has
challenges entirely of its own. Hence, it will not be unexpected that several practical
problems still remain unsolved.
We would like to propose that cloud computing’s security problems can only be
solved if we explore these challenges from a fundamental viewpoint: the data cen-
tric viewpoint. After all, whether it is traditional Information Technology or cloud
computing, everything revolves around data. The systems are in place to process
data, the processes or algorithms define how the data is processed and the poli-
cies and regulations are in place to make sure data is processed in a consistent and
secure manner. A data centric view of cloud security looks at everything as eventu-
ally affecting the security of data residing in the cloud. That said, another challenge
exists. A researcher new to this field may also become overwhelmed by the plethora
of scientific approaches proposed to handle the challenges of securing data, while
maintaining a practical level of privacy. This book (audaciously) attempts to address
this problem, and presents a selection of exciting research work by experts of data
security in cloud computing.
A great classification for data security issues will be one, which is based on the
state of data that gets affected from the issue, data-at-rest, data-in-use or data-in-
transit. In practice however the boundary between the states is not always distinct.
Therefore, there are many data security issues that lie at that boundary and affect two
states of the data. The organization of this book is based on this classification and
reflects the fuzzy boundary between the states. Chapter 1 presents an overview of data
security issues in cloud computing and sets the tone for the book. Chapters 2–4 discuss
data-at-rest, Chapters 4–6 discuss data-in-use, while Chapters 6–8 discuss issues in
data-in-transit. Some issues, such as data leakage, Governance, Risk Management and
Compliance, data provenance and security visualization, affect data in all states and
cannot be categorized under this classification. These are presented towards the end
in Chapters 9–13.
xiv Data security in cloud computing

With our selection of interesting as well as challenging data security issues we

believe this book will be of interest to readers in both industry and academia. It will be
of special interest to graduate and postgraduate students in computer science providing
them with the current state of the art. This field is challenging but rewarding, and
it is great to witness how science has shaped data security for cloud computing. We
learned a lot as editors and authors in this journey, and it is our hope that you will
find this book useful as well.
 Chapter 1
A data-centric view of cloud security
Vimal Kumar1 , Sivadon Chaisiri1 , and Ryan Ko1

Abstract
Cloud computing offers a massive pool of resources and services that cloud users can
utilize for storing and processing their data. The users can flexibly control and reduce
their operational expenditures, whereas resources provisioned from the clouds can be
dynamically resized to meet their demand and especially budgets. The user, however,
has to consider unanticipated and expensive costs from threats associated with attacks
aiming for the user’s data in the cloud. In this chapter, we discuss the primary causes
of new attack vectors that create a multitude of data security issues in clouds. We also
discuss specific data security challenges in clouds and provide a classification which
can help in an easier understanding.

1.1 Introduction
Cloud computing has changed the way we view capital and operational expenses in
information technology (IT) and has changed the way infrastructures are designed
in the current computing age. Cloud computing has also massively removed start-up
costs for new companies and has influenced how we store and process data. Organi-
zations may choose cloud computing because of a number of key business objectives
such as reduced operational costs, reduced complexity, immediate access to resources,
easy scale up and down, lower barrier to innovation etc. The eventual effect of using
clouds for IT needs, however, is that an organization’s data leaves its premises and is
offloaded to the cloud.
Across cloud computing environments, data is the fundamental asset that we
need to secure. Seen from a data-centric point of view, everything else, including the
cloud computing infrastructure, policies, processes and regulations, are peripherals
and are used to support the storage, movement, processing, logging and handling of
data. The cloud computing infrastructure which is used for the storage, movement,
processing, logging and handling of data does not belong to the data owner which has

1
Cyber Security Lab, University of Waikato, New Zealand
2 Data security in cloud computing

subscribed to the cloud services. This separation of data owners and their data raises
new questions for data security which require novel solutions. These solutions should
provide answers to user concerns such as, the trustworthiness of the cloud service
providers, accountability of the cloud service provider, security of data in distributed
environments and across devices, protection against insider attacks in cloud and so
on. Cloud computing also introduces a shared environment for users and their data.
The physical resources are virtualized and shared among many users. Thus, a user’s
application may be using the same physical hardware as many others. The opaqueness
in the cloud environment means the user does not know with whom the resources are
shared with. This shared environment and its opaqueness poses new challenges of
its own such as the issues of data isolation, data remanence, provable data deletion,
data leakage and data integrity among others. One of the characteristics of cloud
computing is globally located servers. Cloud service providers may migrate resources
from one location to another and redistribute them over multiple global data centres
to achieve internal goals such as resource consolidation, better resource utilization
and high network performance. This allows clouds to utilize their resources more
efficiently and also provides users with faster network access and higher reliability.
This geo-distribution, however, introduces security issues of its own such as the
complex interplay of the data privacy laws of multiple territories, issues with the
provenance, tracing and auditing of data that is distributed globally etc.
It is important to understand the threats and security issues that emerge when
data is offloaded from a traditional perimeter bound IT infrastructure to a cloud or
multiple clouds. In this chapter, we attempt to study the underlying causes of many
of these attacks. Moreover, as these issues do not emerge in isolation, we provide a
simple classification of data security issues in cloud computing on the basis of the
state of data. The remainder of this chapter is organized as follows: In Section 1.2,
we provide some cloud computing definitions that will be useful in understanding the
chapter. In Section 1.3, we discuss three underlying causes of the new attack vectors
in clouds and in Section 1.4 we discuss and classify the main data security issues in
cloud computing. Finally, we conclude the chapter in Section 1.5.

1.2 Definitions and terminology

In this section, we go over the basic terminology and definitions in the cloud domain
which will help in the understanding of the chapter. First, we define the main actors
in a cloud computing scenario that we are going to cross in our discussion. Figure 1.1
shows the actors involved and how they interact with each other.
● Data owner is an entity which owns the data that is uploaded on the cloud. Data
owner can be an organization as well as individual users.
● Cloud service provider (CSP) is the entity that provides some form of cloud
computing capability.
● Cloud service partners are outside entities that help the CSP to provide cloud
capabilities. The partners may or may not be CSPs themselves.
 A data-centric view of cloud security 3

Cloud service
provider

Data owner

Cloud service
partners

Cloud users

Figure 1.1 Actors in cloud computing

● Cloud users access and use data stored on the cloud capability provided by the
CSP. Cloud users may or may not own the data stored on the cloud. For example,
let’s say A uploads data on the cloud and also uses this data. A further gives access
to B to use the data. In this case, A is the data owner, whereas both A and B are
cloud users.

In the rest of this chapter, we will generally distinguish data owners from cloud users;
however, in places where the functions of cloud users and data owners are similar, we
will use the term cloud users.
There are various views and definitions of cloud computing which define the
concept with varying degree of success. One of the most popular ones is from the
National Institute of Standard andTechnology (NIST), which defines cloud computing
as follows. Cloud computing is a model for enabling ubiquitous, convenient, on-
demand network access to a shared pool of configurable computing resources (e.g.
networks, servers, storage, applications, and services) that can be rapidly provisioned
and released with minimal management effort or service provider interaction [1].
According to the NIST definition, cloud computing services can be classified based
on the service model they use to create the services. There are three cloud computing
service models as shown in Figure 1.2.
Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS): The services, provided in this model, allow the
cloud user to interact directly with the hardware resources. The consumer is provided
the capability to provision, computing power, storage and network resources. The
consumer also has the responsibility of supplying software to run on the hardware
resources, which can include operating systems and application software. As a result,
although the user does not manage the underlying cloud resources, it has control over
4 Data security in cloud computing

User’s control

Software as a service (SaaS)

Platform as a service (PaaS)

Infrastructure as a service (IaaS)

Cloud’s control

Figure 1.2 Cloud service models

operating systems security and application security while having limited control over
network security [1].
Platform as a Service (PaaS): In the PaaS model, the user is provided with
a development environment with tools, services and libraries. The user can create
cloud services using the provided environment while bounded by the limitations of the
environment. In this service model, the user has control over the applications/services
which it creates but not the underlying hardware or software.
Software as a Service (SaaS): The SaaS model provides software to a cloud user
that it may need. It frees the user from resource maintenance to a large extent while
providing the required functionality. This model offers the least amount of control to
the user. It may provide customizability of the software to fit the user’s need but no
control over the software, the platform or the infrastructure.
The ISO standard ISO/IEC 17728 identifies these service models as cloud
capabilities and defines seven cloud service categories as follows:
1. CaaS: Communications as a Service
2. CompaaS: Compute as a Service
3. DSaaS: Data Storage as a Service
4. IaaS: Infrastructure as a Service
5. NaaS: Network as a Service
6. PaaS: Platform as a Service
7. SaaS: Software as a Service

1.3 Need for new methods

A traditional IT environment consists of various kinds of hardware, which includes
computing devices such as desktop computers, laptops, mobile devices etc. These
devices connect to receive and send data to a number of different servers, such as,
print servers, application servers, database servers etc. All these devices and servers
are located on an in-house network. In such an environment, data resides inside
 A data-centric view of cloud security 5

an organization’s perimeter in various servers or user computers or simply on the

company network. Data security in such an environment can be roughly divided into
two parts, security of data when it goes out of the organization’s perimeter and security
of data within the organization’s perimeter. The security concerns of traditional IT
systems also apply when the operations are moved to clouds. Cloud computing, how-
ever, introduces new attack vectors thereby making security even more challenging.
The three primary causes of the new attack vectors in clouds are the disappearing
perimeter, a new type of insider and contrasting business objectives.
Disappearing perimeter: The definition of perimeter as applied to traditional IT
is not useful in the case of cloud computing. The data in case of cloud computing
resides on the cloud, outside of the company premises, therefore outside of the tra-
ditional perimeter. The cloud service provider, however, provides its own perimeter
security; therefore, the data is not completely outside either. The cloud may further
employ different access control and authorization mechanisms for the organization’s
employees and its customers, both of which access data from the cloud. This creates
a huge grey area of perimeter instead of a well-defined perimeter as was the case in
traditional systems. This problem is further compounded if there is a possibility of
the cloud outsourcing data and applications to its clouds service partners.
A new type of insider: An insider is someone who has authorized access to a
system. The insider may be fairly familiar with the system and the network architecture
and therefore may also have better knowledge of the vulnerabilities and weak points
of the system compared to an outsider. Traditionally, insiders are generally employees
or sub-contractors who have been given access to the systems. Insider attacks have
generally been a major threat to IT systems. Insiders, however, are usually traceable
if proper logging and auditing mechanisms are in place. Along with the traditional
insider, cloud computing introduces a new kind of insider. This insider is the employee
or the sub-contractor that works for the cloud service provider or its partners. They
may not work for the data owner but still have control over the data and access to it
[2]. Unlike traditional insiders, the data owner has no control over such an insider.
Contrasting business objectives: Even when there are no malicious insiders, it can
be hard for a data owner to place its trust in the cloud service provider. This is because
both these parties have contrasting business objectives. The data owner, paying for the
cloud services, wants to maximize the benefit from the cloud services and minimize
expenditure while maintaining the quality of service. The service provider maintaining
the resources, on the other hand, wants to maximize its return on investment by
maximizing the resource utilization which may affect the quality of service. This can
potentially result in misbehaviour on the part of the cloud service provider. According
to [3], this misbehaviour can be one of the following types or a combination thereof. (1)
Hiding failures or data corruption to maintain reputation. (2) Neglecting or deleting
rarely accessed data files to save resources. (3) Attempting to gain information about
the stored data. (4) Colluding with outside parties to harvest user data.
The three causes mentioned above, disappearing perimeter, new type of insider
and contrasting business objectives, together lead to the perceived untrustworthi-
ness of the cloud and play a role in rendering traditional methods of data security
less effective. In the rest of this section, we discuss how three important ways of
6 Data security in cloud computing

maintaining security, accountability and trustworthiness of data are affected by cloud

computing.

1.3.1 Cryptography
Cryptography has been a cornerstone of data security in traditional IT and will con-
tinue to be in the cloud computing paradigm as well. Cryptography addresses two
basic security constructs of data confidentiality and data integrity. Within cryptogra-
phy, encryption has been an important tool along with access control to secure data
on both sides of the perimeter. Encryption has been applied to data travelling on a
network by way of the PKI infrastructure as well as data stored on secondary storage
devices and databases. One of the main challenges in using encryption for protect-
ing the confidentiality has been key management. As the number of authorized users
grow, so do the number of keys and with the growing number of keys, key distribution
and user revocation become more complex. Key management remains a challenge
in cloud computing. As mentioned previously clouds, however, introduce new attack
vectors and therefore new security challenges. To achieve data confidentiality, data is
kept encrypted on the cloud. If, however, the encrypted data is decrypted before being
processed, it will make the data vulnerable to attacks. Therefore, in the context of
cloud computing, there is a need for techniques that enable operations over encrypted
data. Such methods will allow confidentiality of data in the face of insider attacks
and would help in increasing a user’s trust in the cloud. As cloud computing has
enabled new forms of data collection and sharing, it has also created new challenges
in the access control of data. Previously established in-house access control methods
are no longer sufficient in an environment where the perimeter has blurred beyond
recognition. This has fashioned a need for functional encryption [4] and new forms
of access control based on it.
Traditionally, data integrity concerns have been confined to data on the network,
both inside and outside the perimeter. In cloud computing, however, the challenge of
protecting the integrity of data takes a whole new form. Data owners may be concerned
about unauthorized modifications, deletions and corruption of data, both malicious
and accidental [3], because they have no physical control over their data. In addition,
as the cloud is untrusted, there may be concerns about the validity of computations
performed in the cloud. There is, therefore, a need for techniques that can validate and
verify the computations performed in the cloud remotely. This becomes more chal-
lenging when the volume of data is large as is generally the case with cloud. Another
important factor with data integrity in cloud is that the validation and verification
should be performed at run-time when the modifications and deletions are done and
the data owner be informed simultaneously. This is a challenge that owes its existence
entirely to cloud computing.
While cryptography will play a huge role in solving many of the data security
concerns, cryptographic techniques are generally time consuming. Therefore, any
new cryptographic scheme or technique to solve these above-mentioned challenges
needs to take the induced latency in account as this will affect the availability of data
and services hosted in cloud.
 A data-centric view of cloud security 7

1.3.2 Data provenance

In a traditional IT environment, logging or tracing software is used to record infor-
mation about the activities of a particular component such as system usage, database
operations, application execution traces, network packet traces and operating system
events. Such logs can then be used in many applications such as accounting and
billing, system analysis, data surveillance, IT audit, forensics and anomaly detec-
tion. In most cases, however, logs alone are not sufficient to obtain data provenance
which is the derivation history of data, including necessary information about data
creation, data access and data manipulation [5]. Data provenance can provide infor-
mation about who (e.g. user) authorized what process (e.g. software) from where (e.g.
a host address and an absolute directory path) to perform which data operation (e.g.
create, read and write operations) and when (i.e. time of operation) involving a piece
of data (e.g. a file).
In traditional systems, data provenance software such as SPADE [6], S2Logger
[7], Flogger [8] and Progger [9] can be easily deployed in host and guest operating
systems (i.e. physical and virtual machines). In a cloud computing environment, data
owners can deploy data provenance software in self-managed virtual environments
(e.g. IaaS servers and guest operating systems). In most cases, though, data owners
cannot deploy such software in environments to which they have no access such as
IaaS host operating systems, PaaS and SaaS, as such environments are exclusively
controlled by CSPs. Hence, obtaining complete data provenance from clouds is not
a straightforward task, if the CSPs do not share logs associated with their controlled
environments with the data owners. This issue of tracking data provenance outside the
system is a challenging research topic [10]. Data provenance in a cloud environment
has to be confidential and trustworthy. In a traditional IT environment, access control,
traditional data encryption and cryptographic processors (e.g. the Trusted Platform
Module [11]) can be used to obtain both confidentiality and trustworthiness. In a cloud
computing environment, however, the trustworthiness of cloud environments is a
concern. In cloud computing, the traditional data encryption techniques as mentioned
previously are not sufficient to maintain confidentiality of data provenance, and the
cryptographic processors are also not commonly available. Hence, suitable encryption
and trust techniques are required for securing the data provenance stored in cloud
environments.

1.3.3 Privacy and security laws and regulations

Prominent public cloud service providers, such as Amazon Web Services and
Microsoft Azure, typically have servers across several regions or continents, span-
ning across several jurisdictions [12]. Although this provides convenience, allowing
the user seamless access and computation from anywhere in the world, the flow of
data through the jurisdictions remains agnostic to the legal requirements for storing
and processing (e.g. privacy requirements) by design [13]. Few have considered the
different legal requirements across countries when they designed their data security
and privacy solutions for the cloud. The subject of trans-national data privacy and
assurance of the rights of data owners in regions outside their own often gives rise
8 Data security in cloud computing

to larger scale problems [14,15]. One example was the 2008 disestablishment of the
International Safe Harbor Privacy Principles after a Facebook user reported Facebook
for their storage of his data in other regions without his knowledge, at the European
Court of Justice [16]. If we look deeper into cross-boundary issues, there are two
inherent sub-problems [13], which are as follows:
1.3.3.1 Gaps and misalignments
Different countries’ laws are structured differently, with different definitions and
coverage of citizen rights. For example, the term ‘sensitive data’ is defined differently
across several countries, and even undefined in several countries. At the same time,
the actions and consequences of breaches of principles differ from country to country.
1.3.3.2 Different expectations on technology and control
Some territories, such as the European Union, would enforce the ‘right to be for-
gotten’ but it has been widely argued that it is technically impossible to achieve its
requirements. Other countries do not have a strong focus on individual rights but
focus on surveillance for citizen safety. Both ends of this spectrum are valid, and a
cloud service provider would need to navigate such legal minefields if they were to
have successful businesses across the world.
Technologists typically struggle to know in advance or stay current with the ever-
changing legal developments across all countries, and the overheads involved for
staying current with these developments could be reduced if there was a global or
regional alignment [13]. The European Council’s General Data Protection Regulation
(GDPR) [17,18], which will be launched mid-2017, is one such example. However,
one can also expect even more complexities between signatories of the GDPR.
Since the beginning of public cloud proliferation, provider liabilities have hinged
on service-level agreements and contracts and are mainly influenced by the local
laws of the respective countries. It is commonplace to see companies encouraging
users to sign biased contracts, letting go of most rights, and hosting specific data
sets in countries with the most ‘relaxed’ laws around data privacy and sovereignty
[12,15,19,20]. Conversely, most countries require sensitive data such as electronic
healthcare records or banking data to remain on premise or within the country. This
requirement creates a tension for the cloud service provider attempting to expand
into overseas markets [15]. Can technologies which assure privacy preservation and
data provenance reduce the mistrust of these cloud service providers? Also, if a cloud
service provider was to liquidate, what will happen to the data? Will there be a proper
process or legal safeguard for the data owners and stakeholders? In our opinion, these
open challenges are not just interesting for legal professionals but also for researchers
involved in the data security aspect of cloud computing.

1.4 Classification of data security issues in cloud computing

Between the time when data is generated and ultimately destroyed, it moves between
its three states, data-at-rest, data-in-transit and data-in-use (as shown in Figure 1.3),
residing in any one of them at any given time. This is true for data in general and
 A data-centric view of cloud security 9

Data at
rest

Data Data
generation destruction

Data in Data in
transit use

Figure 1.3 Three states of data

Data-at-rest Data-in-use Data-in-transit

Data re-
Secure location
Data computation
Access control Perimeter
persistence
Machine security
isolation
Data
CSP Secure data Verifiable outsourcing
accountability sharing computing

Cross-cutting issues

Data Governance,
Information provenance & risk management and
leakage logging compliance

Figure 1.4 Classification of data security issues

also for data in clouds. Most data security issues can be divided into three categories
depending upon when the issue arises during data’s lifetime. In this section, we go
over each of the three states of data and the security issues that arise therein. Some
security issues, however, are cross-cutting and can affect and arise during any or all of
the states. We discuss these in the cross-cutting issues sub-section. Figure 1.4 shows
a pictorial representation of the classification presented in this section.

1.4.1 Data at rest

Data at rest refers to data stored on secondary storage devices or persistent storage
on a cloud. Persistent storage refers to specialized storage services on the cloud as
10 Data security in cloud computing

well as instance storage connected to each instance. Although specialized storage ser-
vices such as Amazon S3, Windows Azure and Rackspace cloud storage etc. provide
data owners with highly scalable, customizable and reliable storage, instance storage
can be unreliable and is wiped off when the instance terminates. In both the cases,
however, data resides on the cloud, far removed from the user’s machine. This loss of
physical control on the data is compounded by the low trust between the data owners
and CSPs as discussed in Section 1.3. This gives rise to a host of data security issues.
One of the primary challenges in cloud is, how can data owners store data securely
on the untrustworthy cloud and share it with trusted users? Traditional approaches
either struggle with key management (symmetric key approaches) or do not provide
enough flexibility, when it comes to securing the data as well as tracking the data
usage of multiple users. (Traditional PKI approaches). In [21], the authors have tried
to solve this problem by using a progressive elliptic curve encryption scheme which
allows data to be encrypted multiple times. A similar multi-encryption approach has
been used in [22]. Reference [23] has further explored the problem of delegation of
data access privileges. The challenge of secure data sharing becomes more complex
when the data owner also wants to control the access of data in a fine grained manner.
The users of data may have different roles, attributes and may access data in different
contexts. This gives rise to the need of providing role-based, attribute-based or context-
based access [24–27]. Data persistence has also emerged as an important issue in
cloud computing. Cloud service providers need to be able to securely delete data
once it is no more required. Failure to do so may potentially expose data to co-
located users and to anyone who can lay their hands on discarded storage devices.
Cryptographic solutions such as Fade [28] and FadeVersion [29] help data owners in
obtaining verifiable data deletion whenever required. A related data-at-rest problem
is how to verify that the data has not been modified maliciously or accidentally by the
CSP. Verification of integrity of data is generally not a problem with small data but the
volume and remote location of data in the cloud makes this a challenge. This remote
verification also needs to be done in the untrustworthy cloud environment itself, as
downloading data for performing verification is not feasible [30,31]. Another CSP
accountability problem arises, when the cloud is asked to replicate data. How can the
data owner make sure that the CSP genuinely has multiple copies of data, particularly
when the data owner is being charged for the copies [32].

1.4.2 Data in use

Data in use, sometimes also called data in processing, is the active state of data, when
it is being processed. In this state, the data may be held in primary storage of a machine
such as RAM and cache memory and may also reside on registers on the CPU. To be
processed by the CPU, encrypted data needs to be unencrypted and therefore stripped
bare of most of the protection applied to it in the data at rest state. Thus, data in its
lifetime is most vulnerable in this state.
Data stored securely in the cloud can either be processed in the cloud or on the
user’s machine. If the data is processed in the cloud, it needs to be decrypted and
hence becomes vulnerable as mentioned above. If the data is processed on the user’s
 A data-centric view of cloud security 11

machine, the user will incur the extra cost of data transfer to and from the cloud.
Ideally, a user would want to perform computations on the data, in the cloud, but in a
secure manner such that the data is not exposed to attackers. Solutions to this prob-
lem of secure computation in cloud are either non-cryptographic or cryptographic in
nature. Non-cryptographic solutions usually entail encoding and distributing the data
over multiple service providers such as in [34,34]. Multi-party computation (MPC)
and fully homomorphic encryption have long been thought of as leading crypto-
graphic candidate technologies for secure computation. MPC protocols distribute the
computation of a function among multiple parties to provide secure computation of
the function. FHE, on the other hand, are encryption schemes that enable operations
on encrypted data. Both of these technologies, however, are inflexible and cannot
be adapted to the vast range of operations that are necessary in everyday compu-
tation such as searching, index-building, programme execution etc. This has led to
a variety of innovative solutions which solve the secure computation problem in a
specific, application-defined domain. References [35–37] deal with the problem of
secure search in the cloud, whereas [38,39] discuss privacy-preserving indexes. The
work in [40] discusses secure image-processing operations over 2D images, whereas
[41] describes real-time search over encrypted video data.
A problem related to secure computation is verifiable computation. In a low-
trust environment, verifiable computing provides the assurance that data has been
processed as expected by the user or data owner. A simple solution proposed in [42]
uses two clouds, a trusted cloud for verifiable aspects of computing and an un-trusted
cloud for regular computing needs. Other solutions such as the one in [43] approach
this as a problem of verification of the consistency of the database. Cryptographic
solutions to this problem are also discussed in [44,45]. Verifiable accounting or meter-
ing of resources used is also a challenging issue in cloud computing and one which
is of interest to both cloud service providers and cloud users. Verifiable accounting
can provide assurance to both the parties that the billing for the usage of resources is
appropriate and in accordance to an agreed upon policy [46].
Virtualization is one of the basic technologies on which cloud computing is built.
Virtualization allows the creation of multiple separate virtual machines (VM) on
the same physical hardware, thus increasing resource utilization from a CSP’s point
of view. These VMs, however, when running concurrently, use the same physical
resources such as the CPU, main memory, secondary storage and network devices.
This not only can introduce non-malicious fluctuations of hardware usage efficiency
but also creates a new attack vector. Attackers can try to co-locate themselves on the
same physical resources as the machine they want to attack [47]. This creates a need
for better isolation techniques that can allow VMs to operate in a space where they
are unaffected by the co-located VMs.

1.4.3 Data in transit

Data in transit sometimes also referred to as data in motion, is the state of data, in
which it is moving or is transferred from one location to another over a network. In
the realm of cloud computing, data may be moving from cloud client’s local storage
12 Data security in cloud computing

to the CSP’s cloud storage, it may be moving from the cloud storage to local storage.
Data may also move between multiple clouds, and it may also move within a cloud.
All these movements of data are covered under data in transit.
A CSP may move data internally between its datacentres (data relocation) to
achieve internal goals such as resource consolidation, better resource utilization and
high network performance as well as to provide lower latency access to its users.
The service provider, however, also needs to honour any SLA agreements and local
regulations; there may have been regarding the movement and location of data owner’s
data [16]. The data owner, on the other hand, may also need new techniques that can
help it verify the movement and transit of data once uploaded to the cloud. A CSP may
also delegate data to its partners or other CSPs. This may be done due to either a lack
of resources with the cloud or for cost-saving measures or for efficient provisioning.
The cloud partners, however, may or may not have the same level of security for the
data as negotiated by the data owner with the original provider. This results in a major
security challenge that we call data outsourcing, which calls for techniques that can
track data as it moves in and out of the cloud.
As data travels from the data owner to the cloud and on to the cloud user, it raises
another important issue in the data-in-transit category that is perimeter security. As
mentioned previously, the perimeter in cloud has blurred beyond recognition and,
hence, perimeter security has become an even greater challenge and requires new and
innovative solutions. One such promising perimeter security technique is software-
defined perimeter (SDP) [48].

1.4.4 Cross-cutting issues

So far, we have discussed data security issues that arise in the three states of data;
there are, however, issues which affect data in all or more than one states of its life
cycle. We discuss some of such cross-cutting issues in this sub-section.
Accidental and malicious information leakage can occur at any state of data’s life
cycle. Information leakage refers to the disclosure of information about data in cloud.
This information can take many forms and hence can have various implications. In the
seminal work in [47], the authors showed that it was not only possible to ascertain the
geographic location of a VM, it was to a large extent possible to achieve co-residency
with a selected VM. This attack was possible due to a VM’s network information
leakage. References [49,50] explore information leakage due to de-duplication in
cloud storage. The authors note that when multiple data owners upload the same data
to the cloud, many CSPs only keep a single copy on the cloud and simply provide
access links to all data owners and users. This is called de-duplication and can be
exploited to gain information about the data and its owner. Similarly, Reference [51]
looks at the information leakage due to indexing in clouds.
Another cross-cutting issue in cloud computing is that of data provenance and
auditing. As mentioned before, data provenance provides the derivation history of
data. From a security point of view, data provenance can be used for ensuring account-
ability as well as in auditing and forensics. There are, however, open research areas in
data provenance. For example, data provenance can be incomplete and imperfect as
 A data-centric view of cloud security 13

important records or logs of data may be partially collected or absent [10]. Without
the availability of complete and perfect data provenance, provenance can result in
inadmissible evidence, in any kind of auditing. Reconstruction of data provenance by
utilizing existing logs [52], whereas completeness and perfection of provenance can
be assured is still an on-going research problem. Overheads and scalability issues of
data provenance need to be addressed too as the size of provenance data itself can
grow rapidly. This has the potential to degrade performance of machines storing or
collecting data provenance [53]. Maintaining security, privacy and trustworthiness of
data provenance is also an open problem [54].
Finally, data governance, risk and compliance management is another key cross-
cutting challenge for a data-centric view of cloud computing. The relative volatility
and flow of data across and within clouds have increased the complexity for CSPS,
data owners and cloud users [14]. Several researchers have attempted to automate the
data governance regulation and policy compliance alignment for cloud environments
hosting physical and virtual hosts, within and across countries [55]. Provenance and
auditing empowers a certain level of accountability but continued research into capa-
bilities to reduce human input reliance is required for truly automated data governance,
risk management and compliance [19].

1.5 Conclusion
Data security remains one of the top concerns of data owners when moving operations
to the cloud. Even after years of academic and industry research, there are still open
issues that need solutions. Most of these cloud specific issues arise due to the new
attack vectors. In this chapter, we have identified a disappearing perimeter, a new
type of insider and contrasting business objectives of the cloud service provider and
the cloud user as three primary causes of the new attack vectors. We also discussed
how the new attack vectors affect cryptography, data provenance and privacy and
security laws which have traditionally been used as security tools and policies for
data security. We have also provided the reader with a small survey of the open issues
and classified them under a simple taxonomy. We have attempted in this chapter to
provide the reader with a clear understanding of the open data security issues in cloud
computing and hope this will help in stimulating their interest in this exciting field
of research.

References
[1] National Institute of Standards and Technology. The NIST definition of cloud
computing; 2011. http://www.nist.gov/itl/cloud/upload/cloud-def-v15.pdf
[March 2017].
[2] Chandarekaran, K. Essential of Cloud Computing. Boca Raton, FL, USA:
CRC Press, 2014.
[3] Yu, S., W. Lou, and K. Ren. “Data security in cloud computing”, in Handbook
on Securing Cyber-Physical Critical Infrastructure (1st ed.), chapter 15, edited
14 Data security in cloud computing

by Sajal K. Das, Krishna Kant and Nan Zhang, Morgan Kaufmann, Boston,
MA, USA, 2012.
[4] Boneh, D., A. Sahai, and B. Waters. “Functional encryption: Definitions and
challenges”, in Theory of Cryptography Conference. Berlin: Springer, 2011.
[5] Tan, A. Y. S., R. K. L. Ko, G. Holmes, and B. Rogers. “Provenance for cloud
data accountability”, in R. Ko, & K.-K. R. Choo (Eds.), The Cloud Security
Ecosystem: Technical, Legal, Business and Management Issues (pp. 171–185).
Berlin, Heidelberg: Elsevier Inc., 2015.
[6] Gehani, D. T. “SPADE: support for provenance auditing in distributed envi-
ronments”, in Proceedings of the 13th International Middleware Conference.
New York: Springer-Verlag New York, Inc., 2012.
[7] Suen, C. H., R. K. L. Ko, Y. S. Tan, P. Jagadpramana, and B. S. Lee. “S2logger:
End-to-end data tracking mechanism for cloud data provenance”, in Trust,
Security and Privacy in Computing and Communications (TrustCom), 2013
12th IEEE International Conference on. Melbourne, VIC, Australia: IEEE,
2013.
[8] Ko, R. K. L., P. Jagadpramana, and B. S. Lee. “Flogger: A file-centric logger
for monitoring file access and transfers with cloud computing environments”,
in Third IEEE International Workshop on Security in e-Science and e-Research
(ISSR’11), in conjunction with IEEE TrustCom’11, Changsha, China, 2011.
[9] Ko, R. K. L., and M. A. Will. “Progger: An efficient, tamper-evident
Kernel-space logger for cloud data provenance tracking”, in Cloud Computing
(CLOUD), 2014 IEEE Seventh International Conference on.Anchorage, AK,
USA: IEEE, 2014.
[10] Tan, Y. S., R. K. L. Ko, and G. Holmes. “Security and data accountability
in distributed systems: a provenance survey”, in 2013 IEEE 10th Interna-
tional Conference on High Performance Computing and Communications &
2013 IEEE International Conference on Embedded and Ubiquitous Computing
(HPCC_EUC) (pp. 1571–1578). Zhangjiajie, China: IEEE.
[11] Taha, M. M. B., S. Chaisiri, and R. K. L. Ko. “Trusted tamper-evident
data provenance”, in Trustcom/BigDataSE/ISPA, 2015 IEEE. Vol. 1. Helsinki,
Finland: IEEE, 2015.
[12] Ko, R. K. L. “Cloud computing in plain English”, ACM Crossroads 16.3
(2010): 5–6. ACM.
[13] Scoon, C., and R. K. L. Ko. “The data privacy matrix project: Towards a
global alignment of data privacy laws”, Trustcom/BigDataSE/I SPA, 2016
IEEE. Tianjin, China: IEEE, 2016.
[14] Ko, R. K., P. Jagadpramana, M. Mowbray, et al. (2011, July). “TrustCloud:
A framework for accountability and trust in cloud computing”, in Services
(SERVICES), 2011 IEEE World Congress on (pp. 584–588). Washington, DC,
USA: IEEE.
[15] Ko, R. K. L., G. Russello, R. Nelson, et al. “Stratus: Towards returning data
control to cloud users”, in International Conference on Algorithms and Archi-
tectures for Parallel Processing, pp. 57–70. Cham: Springer International
Publishing, 2015.
 A data-centric view of cloud security 15

[16] Reidenberg, J. R. “Resolving conflicting international data privacy rules in

cyberspace”, Stanford Law Review 52, no. 5 (2000): 1315–1371.
[17] Mantelero, A. “The EU proposal for a general data protection regulation and
the roots of the ‘right to be forgotten”’, Computer Law & Security Review 29.3
(2013): 229–235.
[18] de Hert, Paul, and Vagelis Papakonstantinou. “The new general data protection
regulation: Still a sound system for the protection of individuals?”, Computer
Law & Security Review 32.2 (2016): 179–194.
[19] Ko, R. K. L. “Data accountability in cloud systems”, in Security, Privacy and
Trust in Cloud Systems, pp. 211–238. Berlin: Springer, 2014.
[20] Ko, R. K. L., S. S. G. Lee, and V. Rajan. “Understanding cloud failures”, IEEE
Spectrum (2012): 84–84. IEEE.
[21] Zhao, G., Rong, C. Rong, J. Li, F. Zhang, and Y. Tang. “Trusted data shar-
ing over untrusted cloud storage providers.” Cloud Computing Technology
and Science (CloudCom), 2010 IEEE Second International Conference on.
Indianapolis, IN, USA: IEEE, 2010.
[22] Cabaniss, R., V. Kumar, and S. Madria. “Multi-party encryption (MPE): Secure
communications in delay tolerant networks”, Wireless Networks 21.4 (2015):
1243–1258.
[23] Xue, K., and P. Hong. “A dynamic secure group sharing framework in pub-
lic cloud computing”, IEEE Transactions on Cloud Computing 2.4 (2014):
459–470.
[24] Zhou, L., V. Varadharajan, and M. Hitchens. “Enforcing role-based access
control for secure data storage in the cloud”, The Computer Journal 54, no. 10
(2011): 1675–1687.
[25] Tang, Y., P. P. C. Lee, J. C. S. Lui, and R. Perlman. “Secure overlay cloud storage
with access control and assured deletion”, IEEE Transactions on Dependable
and Secure Computing 9.6 (2012): 903–916.
[26] Li, M., S. Yu, Y. Zheng, K. Ren, and W. Lou. “Scalable and secure sharing
of personal health records in cloud computing using attribute-based encryp-
tion”, IEEE Transactions on Parallel and Distributed Systems 24.1 (2013):
131–143.
[27] Zhou, Z., L. Wu, and Z. Hong. “Context-aware access control model for cloud
computing”, International Journal of Grid and Distribution Computing 6.6
(2013): 1–12.
[28] Tang, Y., P. P. Lee, J. C. Lui, and R. Perlman (2010, September). “FADE: Secure
overlay cloud storage with file assured deletion”, in International Conference
on Security and Privacy in Communication Systems (pp. 380–397). Berlin,
Heidelberg: Springer.
[29] Rahumed, A., H. C. Chen, Y. Tang, P. P. Lee, and J. C. Lui (2011, September).
“A secure cloud backup system with assured deletion and version control”, in
Parallel Processing Workshops (ICPPW), 2011 40th International Conference
on (pp. 160–167). Taipei City, Taiwan: IEEE.
[30] Erway, C., A. Kupc¸U. C. Papamanthou, and R. Tamassia. “Dynamic provable
data possession,” in CCS’09: Proceedings of the 16th ACM Conference on
16 Data security in cloud computing

Computer and Communications Security (New York, NY, USA), pp. 213–222,
New York, NY, USA: ACM, 2009.
[31] Wang, C., Q. Wang, K. Ren, and W. Lou. “Privacy-preserving public auditing
for data storage security in cloud computing,” in InfoCom2010, San Diego,
CA, USA: IEEE, March 2010.
[32] Mukundan, R., S. Madria, and M. Linderman. “Efficient integrity verification
of replicated data in cloud using homomorphic encryption.” Distributed and
Parallel Databases 32.4 (2014): 507–534.
[33] Will, M. A., R. K. L. Ko, and I. H. Witten. “Bin Encoding: A user-centric
secure full-text searching scheme for the cloud”, Trustcom/BigDataSE/ISPA,
2015 IEEE. Vol. 1. Helsinki, Finland: IEEE, 2015.
[34] Will, M. A., R. K. L. Ko, and I. H. Witten. “Privacy preserving computation
by fragmenting individual bits and distributing gates”, Trustcom/BigDataSE/I
SPA, 2016 IEEE. Tianjin, China: IEEE, 2016.
[35] Wang, C., N. Cao, J. Li, K. Ren, and W. Lou. “Secure ranked keyword search
over encrypted cloud data”, Distributed Computing Systems (ICDCS), 2010
IEEE 30th International Conference on. Genova, Italy: IEEE, 2010.
[36] Cao, N., C. Wang, M. Li, K. Ren, and W. Lou. “Privacy-preserving multi-
keyword ranked search over encrypted cloud data”, IEEE Transactions on
Parallel and Distributed Systems 25.1 (2014): 222–233.
[37] Ren, S. Q., and K. M. M. Aung. “PPDS: Privacy preserved data sharing scheme
for cloud storage”, International Journal of Advancements in Computing
Technology 4 (2012): 493–499.
[38] Hu, H., J. Xu, C. Ren, and B. Choi. “Processing private queries over untrusted
data cloud through privacy homomorphism”, Data Engineering (ICDE), 2011
IEEE 27th International Conference on. Hannover, Germany: IEEE, 2011.
[39] Squicciarini, A., S. Sundareswaran, D. Lin. “Preventing information leakage
from indexing in the cloud”, Cloud Computing (CLOUD), 2010 IEEE Third
International Conference on. Miami, FL, USA: IEEE, 2010.
[40] Mohanty, M., M. R. Asghar, G. Russello. “2DCrypt: Privacy-preserving image
scaling and cropping in the cloud”, IEEE Transactions Information Forensics
and Security (TIFS) 2016.
[41] Liu, J. K., M. H. Au, W. Susilo, K. Liang, R. Lu, and B. Srinivasan. “Secure
sharing and searching for real-time video data in mobile cloud”, IEEE Network
29.2 (2015): 46–50.
[42] Bugiel, S., S. Nürnberger, A. R. Sadeghi, T. Schneider (2011, October). “Twin
clouds: Secure cloud computing with low latency”, in IFIP International Con-
ference on Communications and Multimedia Security (pp. 32–44). Berlin:
Springer.
[43] Jana, S., V. Shmatikov (2011, June). “EVE: Verifying correct execution of
cloud-hosted web applications”, in HotCloud.
[44] Rosario G., C. Gentry, B. Parno. “Non-interactive verifiable computing: out-
sourcing computation to untrusted workers”, Proceedings of the 30th Annual
Conference on Advances in Cryptology, August 15–19, 2010
 A data-centric view of cloud security 17

[45] Shuo, Y., A. R. Butt, Y. Charlie Hu, S. P. Midkiff. “Trust but verify: Monitoring
remotely executing programs for progress and correctness”, Proceedings of
the Tenth ACM SIGPLAN Symposium on Principles and Practice of Parallel
Programming, June 15–17, 2005.
[46] Sekar, V., P. Maniatis. “Verifiable resource accounting for cloud computing ser-
vices”, Proceedings of the Third ACM Workshop on Cloud Computing Security
Workshop. New York, NY, USA: ACM, 2011.
[47] Ristenpart, T., E. Tromer, H. Shacham, S. Savage (2009, November). “Hey,
you, get off of my cloud: exploring information leakage in third-party
compute clouds”, in Proceedings of the 16th ACM Conference on Computer
and Communications Security (pp. 199–212). Chicago, IL, USA: ACM.
[48] Software Defined Perimeter Working Group, “SDP specification 1.0”,
April 2014. Available: https://cloudsecurityalliance.org/download/sdp-
specification-v1-0/. [retrieved Feb 21, 2017].
[49] Mulazzani, M., S. Schrittwieser, M. Leithner, M. Huber, E. R. Weippl (2011,
August). “Dark clouds on the horizon: Using cloud storage as attack vector
and online slack space”, in USENIX Security Symposium (pp. 65–76).
[50] Harnik, D., B. Pinkas, A. Shulman-Peleg. “Side channels in cloud services:
Deduplication in cloud storage”, IEEE Security & Privacy 8.6 (2010): 40–47.
[51] Squicciarini, A., S. Sundareswaran, D. Lin. “Preventing information leakage
from indexing in the cloud”, Cloud Computing (CLOUD), 2010 IEEE Third
International Conference on. IEEE, 2010.
[52] Magliacane, S. “Reconstructing provenance”, The Semantic Web–ISWC 2012
(2012): 399–406.
[53] Zhao, D., C. Shou, T. Malik, I. Raicu. “Distributed data provenance for large-
scale data-intensive computing”, Cluster Computing (CLUSTER), 2013 IEEE
International Conference on. IEEE, 2013.
[54] Hasan, R., R. Sion, M. Winslett. “Introducing secure provenance: problems
and challenges”, Proceedings of the 2007 ACM Workshop on Storage Security
and Survivability. Alexandria, VA, USA: ACM, 2007.
[55] Papanikolaou, N., S. Pearson, M. Casassa Mont, R. K. L. Ko. “A toolkit for
automating compliance in cloud computing services”, International Journal
of Cloud Computing 2 3, no. 1 (2014): 45–68.
This page intentionally left blank
 Chapter 2
Nomad: a framework for ensuring data
confidentiality in mission-critical cloud-based
applications
Mamadou H. Diallo1 , Michael August1 , Roger Hallman1 ,
Megan Kline1 , Henry Au1 , and Scott M. Slayback1

Abstract
Due to their low cost and simplicity of use, public cloud services are gaining popularity
among both public and private sector organisations. However, there are many threats
to the cloud, including data breaches, data loss, account hijacking, denial of service,
and malicious insiders. One of the solutions for addressing these threats is the use of
secure computing techniques such as homomorphic encryption and secure multiparty
computation, which allow for processing of encrypted data stored in untrusted cloud
environments without ever having the decryption key. The performance of these tech-
niques is a limiting factor in the adoption of cloud-based applications. Both public and
private sector organisations with strong requirements for data security and privacy
are reluctant to push their data to the cloud. In particular, mission-critical defense
applications used by governments do not tolerate any leakage of sensitive data. In this
chapter, we present Nomad, a framework for developing mission-critical cloud-based
applications. The framework is comprised of: (1) a homomorphic encryption-based
service for processing encrypted data directly within the untrusted cloud infrastruc-
ture, and (2) a client service for encrypting and decrypting data within the trusted
environment, and storing and retrieving these data to and from the cloud. In order
to accelerate the expensive homomorphic encryption operations, we equipped both
services with a Graphics Processing Unit (GPU)-based parallelisation mechanism.
To evaluate the Nomad framework, we developed CallForFire, a Geographic Infor-
mation System (GIS)-based mission-critical defense application that can be deployed
in the cloud. CallForFire enables secure computation of enemy target locations and
selection of firing assets. Due to the nature of the mission, this application requires
guaranteed security. The experimental results show that the performance of homo-
morphic encryption can be enhanced by using a GPU-based acceleration mechanism.

1
US Department of Defense, SPAWAR Systems Center Pacific (SSC Pacific), San Diego, CA, USA
20 Data security in cloud computing

In addition, the performance of the CallForFire application demonstrates the fea-

sibility of using the Nomad framework to develop mission-critical cloud-based
applications.

2.1 Introduction
Public cloud services are gaining popularity among both public and private sector
organisations due to their low cost and ease of use. According to the U.S. National
Institute of Standards and Technology, the cloud provides a pool of compute resources
which can be dynamically provisioned over the Internet, and which is both scalable and
measurable [1]. Public cloud service providers such as Google, Rackspace, Heroku,
and Amazon Web Services provide various software services over the Internet at low
cost, including services such as content management, accounting, virtualisation, and
customer relationship management.
Since computers have become highly commoditised in recent years, it can make
economic sense to outsource computation to clusters of distributed untrusted compute
units whose ownership and locations are unknown. The cloud provides an abstraction
for this compute model. Public clouds achieve cost efficiencies via economies of scale
and cost sharing among many customers, and therefore provide a means for organ-
isations to achieve high throughput computation at minimal cost without requiring
significant amounts of upfront capital investment in data center infrastructure. As a
result, organisations have been increasingly embracing the cloud as a platform for
outsourcing the hosting of web-based services. Virtual machines form the fundamen-
tal unit of the cloud abstraction, as they can be provisioned and destroyed completely
within software without labour-intensive changes to hardware configurations. This
fluid computational model enables software systems to be rapidly provisioned, con-
figured, deployed, and scaled in the cloud without the purchase of expensive dedicated
hardware.
The Cloud Security Alliance [2] has identified multiple security threats to the
cloud. These security threats discourage organisations, such as financial institutions,
healthcare organisations, federal and state governments, and defense agencies, from
using the public cloud to store their sensitive data. These threats include data breaches,
data loss, account hijacking, denial of service, and malicious insiders, among oth-
ers. Cloud security and privacy issues have been confirmed by different surveys [3].
For instance, virtual machine escape vulnerabilities, such as VENOM [4], enable a
guest virtual machine to access and execute code on the host machine. Additionally,
cross-VM side-channel attacks can take advantage of co-resident virtual machines
within a cloud infrastructure. One such example of this type of attack, known as a
cache attack, has been successfully demonstrated on public cloud service providers
[5–11]. As security researchers continue to explore and identify threats within public
cloud service offerings, more information about cloud vulnerabilities will be exposed,
thereby leading to the development of exploitation tools. For example, Nimbostra-
tus [12] is a toolset developed for fingerprinting and exploiting poorly configured
Amazon Web Services deployments. Since there is no guarantee that data stored and
processed in public clouds will remain confidential, organisations have a need for
 Nomad: a framework for ensuring data confidentiality 21

secure computation mechanisms to guarantee the security and privacy of such data.
Fully homomorphic encryption is one such mechanism.
Starting with the first construction of fully homomorphic encryption in 2009
[13], the cryptographic research community has been actively developing new
homomorphic cryptography schemes, which would enable computation on encrypted
data in the cloud. A number of schemes have been developed, including lattice-based
[13], and ring learning with errors (RLWEs)-based approaches [14]. As a result, sig-
nificant progress has been achieved [15]. However, homomorphic encryption schemes
have not matured enough to be used as the mainstream data encryption mechanism
due to the fact that the homomorphic operations are computationally intensive. This
computational complexity limits the practicality of current homomorphic encryption
schemes.
Since secure computation techniques such as homomorphic encryption are cur-
rently impractical, public cloud service providers enable customers to perform their
own encryption before storing their sensitive data in the cloud (e.g., end-to-end
encrypted cloud storage provided by https://mega.nz), thereby precluding the cus-
tomer from performing any computation on their data when stored in the cloud. In
order to perform computations on the encrypted data stored in the cloud, it must be
decrypted first, which can lead to data leakage.
To address these limitations of current cloud service providers, we propose
Nomad, a framework for building mission-critical cloud-based applications. Nomad
consists of a distributed architecture for storage and processing of encrypted data,
which is deployed across trusted and untrusted cloud environments. The Nomad
framework leverages cloud-based Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) to cre-
ate a secure storage service hosted on virtual machines. This storage service achieves
data confidentiality via a homomorphic encryption-based data storage system. To
accelerate the homomorphic encryption operations within the storage system, Nomad
uses a GPU-based parallelisation technique. Nomad also provides a monitoring sys-
tem, which enables the system administrator to track the resource usage and state
of virtual machines running in the cloud. The monitoring system informs the system
administrator when the virtual machines are not meeting required performance objec-
tives, thereby enabling the system administrator to migrate the cloud-based services
to another cloud. The framework provides a means of outsourcing sensitive computa-
tions to an unsecure cloud environment, without concern for the loss of confidentiality
of the data. The primary benefit of this approach is that it enables organisations and
individuals to take advantage of the cost efficiencies of the cloud without having to
worry about the security (i.e., data confidentiality) ramifications of using the cloud.
Within the Nomad framework, the data is encrypted and decrypted on the trusted
client side. The encrypted data is homomorphically processed on the untrusted server
without ever decrypting the ciphertext representation of the data. The assumption is
that the untrusted environment has more computation power than the trusted envi-
ronment. In our current implementation of Nomad, we use HElib, an open source
homomorphic encryption (HE) library [16]. HElib provides low-level cryptographic
operations and is computationally intensive.
We developed an end-to-end application, called CallForFire, to analyse the fea-
sibility of the Nomad framework. CallForFire is a GIS-based defense application
22 Data security in cloud computing

for target acquisition and direction of fires against acquired targets. The applica-
tion includes a map for visualising observer and target locations. We performed
experiments to evaluate the performance of CallForFire.
Contributions. The following are the main contributions of this work:
● We designed and implemented a fully homomorphic encryption-based key/value
storage system. This storage system provides a means for efficient storage,
retrieval, and processing of encrypted data stored in the cloud.
● We built a framework, called Nomad, around the storage system, which facili-
tates the development of mission-critical applications that can be deployed in the
cloud. The framework simplifies the development of secure applications that are
deployed in the cloud.
● We used GPU parallelisation to accelerate HElib operations on both the trusted
client and the untrusted server.
● We implemented an application, called CallForFire, using the Nomad framework.
CallForFire is an interactive GIS application that demonstrates the feasibility of
the Nomad framework.
● We performed experiments to analyse the performance of the CallForFire
application. For specific use cases and interactive applications such as Call-
ForFire, Homomorphic Encryption is feasible, but it may still be too slow for
non-interactive applications.

2.2 Nomad framework overview

The Nomad framework consists of a modular architecture, which provides flexibil-
ity when implementing systems using the framework. The framework employs a
client/server design to enable rapid deployment of secure cloud-based services. The
specific application services making use of the framework are decided by the appli-
cation developer. By using the Nomad framework, the application developer does not
have to ensure the confidentiality of the data when designing the application, since the
confidentiality of the application data is guaranteed by the framework itself. The appli-
cation developer needs only to configure the framework so as to match its security level
to the requirements of the application. The client module is assumed to run on a trusted
machine which can safely store private encryption keys. The server module is assumed
to run on a semi-trusted or untrusted machine. Together, the trusted client and the
untrusted server provide a platform for secure computation in untrusted environments.
The client/server architecture of the Nomad framework can be seen in
Figure 2.1. The Client Management Service consists of the Client Management Engine
and all of the components necessary for managing the homomorphic encryption of
the plaintext application data as well as the components responsible for monitor-
ing the health of the virtual machines. The Cloud Storage Service consists of the
Cloud Management Engine and the server side homomorphic encryption and mon-
itoring components. The Cloud Storage Service resides on virtual machines in the
cloud. The specific configuration of virtual machines used depends on the application
developer’s implementation.
 Nomad: a framework for ensuring data confidentiality 23

Client Management Service (trusted) Cloud Storage Service (untrusted)

Cloud Monitor GUI VM VM VM VM

UI API Hypervisor

Client Management Engine Cloud Management Engine

Client Client HE Client HE Server Server HE Server

VM
GPU Processing Key GPU Processing HE Key
Monitor
Device Engine Manager Device Engine Manager

Private Cloud Private Key Public Ciphertext Public VM State

DB Cloud DB Key DB DB

Figure 2.1 Nomad framework high-level architecture

2.2.1 Client management service

The Client Management Service is typically deployed on a trusted machine, possibly
within a private cloud owned by the application developer. The components of the
Client Management Service consist of the following: a Cloud Monitor Graphical User
Interface (GUI), User Interface API (UI API), Client Management Engine, HE Pro-
cessing Engine, HE Key Manager, Public/Private Key Database, and a GPU Device.
The Client Management Engine takes commands from the UI API and translates them
into tasks to be distributed to the HE Processing Engine and HE Key Manager, thereby
acting as an abstraction layer between the end user and the underlying components
which make up the framework. The Cloud Monitor GUI is the graphical user interface
that has been implemented for developers using the framework to be able to manage
and view data stored within the system, as well as to be able to view the health of the
virtual machines under observation. The UI API is the programmatic interface that
the application developer uses to program applications to interact with and use the
framework. Due to the modular design of the framework, the application developer is
free to use the UI API to create their own GUI. The HE Processing Engine performs
the homomorphic encryption of the plaintext data stored in the system as well as the
homomorphic decryption of the ciphertext data retrieved from the system. The GPU
Device is used by the HE Processing Engine to accelerate the computations needed to
homomorphically encrypt and decrypt data. The HE Key Manager is responsible for
storing and retrieving the public and private keys used by the HE Processing Engine
when encrypting and decrypting the trusted data. The Public/Private Key Database
is the database used by the HE Key Manager for storage and retrieval of the public
and private keys used for homomorphic encryption and decryption. As an example,
a command to encrypt an integer value is sent via the UI API to the Client Manage-
ment Engine, which then generates the public/private key pair, stores the keys in the
24 Data security in cloud computing

Public/Private Key Database, and then sends the encryption command along with the
integer value to be encrypted over to the HE Processing Engine so that it can encrypt
the value. Once the plaintext value is encrypted, the ciphertext result is sent back to
the Client Management Engine so that it can be stored in the cloud using the Cloud
Storage Service.

2.2.2 Cloud storage service

The Cloud Storage Service is deployed on a semi-trusted or untrusted machine or
set of untrusted machines. It can be deployed in a public cloud on multiple virtual
machines, or even on virtual machines hosted across different public cloud environ-
ments. Since the framework makes use of a web service-based client/server model,
its components can be distributed geographically and still interoperate to provide a
secure storage system. The Cloud Storage Service makes use of virtual machines
running on a hypervisor in the cloud, and consists of the following components: a
Cloud Management Engine, HE Processing Engine, HE Key Manager, VM Monitor,
Ciphertext Database, Public Key Database, Virtual Machine Statistics Database, and
a GPU Device. The Cloud Management Engine provides the client-facing interface
to the server side of the Cloud Storage Service, and is hosted on virtual machines in
the cloud. It receives commands from the Client Management Engine to store and
retrieve encrypted data, and to perform operations on data stored within the system.
The HE Processing Engine is the component that actually performs the homomor-
phic encryption operations. The ciphertext results of operations on homomorphically
encrypted data are stored in the Ciphertext Database for later retrieval. The HE Key
Manager manages the public keys used by the HE Processing Engine. The Public
Key Database stores the public keys for access by the HE Key Manager. The public
key is periodically used by the HE Processing Engine to re-encrypt the ciphertext to
remove noise that accumulates over time to ensure the accuracy of the ciphertext. The
VM Monitor is used for monitoring the state of virtual machines to assist the user in
deciding if virtual machines need to be replicated or migrated in order to maintain
system performance and ensure application availability. The VM Monitor makes use
of a VM State Database to store the current and historical virtual machine state data.

2.2.3 Operational overview

When put together, the Client Management Service and the Cloud Storage Service
intercommunicate to create the Nomad framework. Nomad provides a means for
application developers to store encrypted application data in the cloud. This encrypted
data can then be used in computations that the application performs in the cloud
without ever decrypting the ciphertext. As a result, the sensitive plaintext data are
never put at risk even though the systems comprising the cloud infrastructure are
unknown and untrusted. This new paradigm for secure computation on untrusted
systems addresses a major drawback of outsourced computation in general, and of
cloud computing in particular. The Nomad framework provides the basic operations
of storage, retrieval, deletion, and computation on data. Below is a description of
how the system stores, retrieves, and performs computation on encrypted data. Client
 Nomad: a framework for ensuring data confidentiality 25

applications making use of the Nomad framework use the UI API to store data in the
Cloud Storage Service. The Client Management Service is responsible for managing
all of the keys, data, and operations for the client application. The application server is
assumed to be running on virtual machines in the cloud alongside the Cloud Storage
Service itself. The application data is stored as ciphertext in the cloud. All operations
that the application performs on the data are performed on the ciphertext directly,
as the application never has access to the underlying plaintext data. After operations
have been performed on the ciphertext data in the cloud, the results are returned to the
trusted client application for display and consumption by the end-user. Upon first use
of the system, the user initialises the client and generates a public/private key pair. In
practice, key generation would be done by a trusted third party.
Storage of encrypted data. A description of how the data is encrypted and
stored in the cloud storage system follows. Note: Assume that each user has a single
public/private key pair for encryption and decryption of their data.
1. System initialisation: In order to use the system, the user must first send a
request to the Client Management Engine to generate a public/private key pair
(< IDuser , PK, SK >). The public key and private key are denoted by PK and
SK, respectively. The Client Management Engine sends a request to the HE Key
Manager to generate the key pair and store it in the Public/Private Key DB. The
Client Management Engine sends the User ID and Public Key (< IDuser , PK >)
to the Cloud Management Engine for later usage. The Cloud Management Engine
calls on the HE Key Manager to store the User ID and Public Key in the Public
Key DB.
2. The user initiates a request to store their Valueplaintext in the Cloud Storage Service.
3. The Client Management Engine submits a request to the HE Processing Engine
to encrypt the plaintext value to get the ciphertext
(Enc(Valueplaintext , PK) = Valueciphertext ).
4. The Client Management Engine then submits a request to the server-side Cloud
Management Engine to store the key/value pair
(< Keydata , Valueciphertext , IDuser >). The Keydata can be represented by a hash func-
tion computed by the Client Management Engine. Note that this key (Keydata ) is
used for indexing the data within the cloud storage, not to be confused with the
public key (PK) used for encryption or the private key (SK) used for decryption.
5. The Cloud Management Engine receives the storage request and calls on the
HE Processing Engine to store the data (< Keydata , Valueciphertext , IDuser >) in the
Ciphertext DB.

Retrieval of encrypted data. The following describes how the encrypted data is
retrieved from the cloud storage system and decrypted.

1. The user initiates a request to retrieve their Valueplaintext from the Cloud Storage
Service.
2. The Client Management Engine submits a request to the server-side Cloud Man-
agement Engine to retrieve the value associated with the user ID and the key
which is unique to the data (< Keydata , IDuser >).
 26 Data security in cloud computing

3. The Cloud Management Engine receives the retrieval request and calls on the HE
Processing Engine to retrieve the data, Valueciphertext , from the Ciphertext DB.
4. The Ciphertext DB responds to the query for the data associated with the tuple
< Keydata , IDuser > and returns the Valueciphertext to the HE Processing Engine.
5. The HE Processing Engine returns the encrypted data to the Cloud Management
Engine.
6. The Cloud Management Engine returns the encrypted data to the Client
Management Engine.
7. The Client Management Engine submits a request to the HE Key Manager to
retrieve the Private Key, SK, associated with the user.
8. The HE Key Manager queries the Public/Private Key DB to retrieve the Private
Key assigned to the user.
9. Upon receiving the Private Key from the Public/Private Key DB, the HE Key
Manager returns the Private Key to the Client Management Engine.
10. The Client Management Engine sends < Valueciphertext , SK > to the HE Process-
ing Engine along with a request to decrypt the Valueciphertext .
11. The HE Processing Engine takes the Valueciphertext and returns the Valueplaintext to
the Client Management Engine (Dec(Valueciphertext , SK) = Valueplaintext ).
12. The Client Management Engine returns the Valueplaintext to the user.
Operations on encrypted data. Following is a description of the process taken
to perform an operation on the encrypted data in the cloud. Nomad supports the
following binary arithmetic operations on integers in the encrypted domain: addition,
subtraction, multiplication, and negation.
Note: This section assumes that the data has already been stored in the cloud
storage system—refer to the Data Storage section above for details on how this is
accomplished.
1. The user requests that a binary operation, OP, be performed on two integers (e.g.,
data1 and data2).
2. The Client Management Engine generates the request to perform the operation
on the two integers and sends it to the Cloud Management Engine
(< IDuser , Keydata1 , Keydata2 , OP >).
3. The Cloud Management Engine parses the request to identify the operation, the
operands, and the user who submitted the request.
4. The Cloud Management Engine retrieves the two encrypted integers from the
Ciphertext Database using their associated data IDs (Keydata1 and Keydata2 ).
5. The Cloud Management Engine retrieves the public key associated with the user’s
ID (IDuser ) from the Public/Private Key Database.
6. The Cloud Management Engine calls on the HE Processing Engine to perform
the operation on the ciphertext data
(OP(PK, Dataciphertext1 , Dataciphertext2 ) = Resultciphertext ).
7. The HE Processing Engine makes use of the GPU Device as necessary to
accelerate the operation on the two integer values.
8. The Cloud Management Engine then returns the Resultciphertext to the Client
Management Engine.
 Nomad: a framework for ensuring data confidentiality 27

9. The Client Management Engine retrieves the user’s private key (SK) by requesting
it from the HE Key Manager.
10. Using the private key, SK, the Client Management Engine calls on the
HE Processing Engine to decrypt the Resultciphertext
(Dec(Keyprivate , Resultciphertext )=Resultplaintext ).
11. The Client Management Engine then sends the Resultplaintext to the user.

2.3 Homomorphic encryption background

Fully Homomorphic Encryption (FHE) is seen as the “holy grail of cryptography”
[17]. The ability to outsource data processing without giving away information about
the data, or which components of the data are of interest during computation, is
foundational for the concepts of security and privacy in the cloud. FHE was first
theorised by Rivest et al. [18], but there was not a successful FHE scheme until
Gentry’s Doctoral Thesis [13] in 2009. The success of Gentry’s Doctoral work was
revolutionary and there have been many advances in the field since then and a number
of FHE schemes have since been developed [19,20], most notably the Brakerski,
Gentry, and Vaikuntanathan (BGV) scheme [21]. The open source Homomorphic
Encryption library (HElib) [16] implements this BGV scheme and is the underlying
homomorphic encryption scheme used in Nomad.

2.3.1 BGV scheme

The BGV scheme for homomorphic encryption is based on the Ring Learning With
Errors (RLWE) problem [22] and is built on algebraic structures, in particular rings
and ideal lattices [21]. The security of RLWE schemes is based on the Shortest
Vector Problem (SVP), which has been shown to be at least as hard as worst-case
lattice problems. Specifically, the LWE problem and its variants are known to be
secure against all currently known quantum computer attacks [23]. Moreover, RLWE
cryptography schemes are generally more computationally efficient than traditional
LWE schemes because of the use of ideal lattices as their foundational structure. BGV
offers a choice of “leveled” FHE schemes based on either LWE or RLWE—with the
RLWE scheme having better performance—where the size of the public key is linear
in the depth of the circuits that the scheme can evaluate. The fundamental operation
in the scheme is the REFRESH procedure, which switches the moduli of the lattice
structure as well as the key. This process runs in almost quasilinear time when used
with the RLWE version.
RLWE [24] is formally defined as follows: For security parameter λ, let f (x) =
xd + 1 where d = d(λ) is a power of 2. Let q = q(λ) ≥ 2 ∈ Z. Let R = Z[x]/(f (x))
and let Rq = R/qR. Let χ = χ (λ) be a distribution over R. The RLWEd,q,χ problem
is to distinguish the following two distributions: In the first distribution, one sam-
ples (ai , bi ) from R2q . In the second distribution, one first draws s ← Rq uniformly
and then samples (ai , bi ) ∈ R2q by sampling ai ← Rq uniformly, ei ← χ , and setting
bi = ai · s + ei . The assumption is that the RLWEd,q,χ problem is infeasible. For this
28 Data security in cloud computing

application, the security parameter λ is on the order of |λ| = 102 , s is the secret key,
ei is generated noise, and χ is assumed to be Gaussian.
The definitions needed for the encryption scheme are as follows. Let R = R(λ)
be a ring. HElib uses R = (Z)[x]/f (x) where f (x) = xd + 1 and d = d(λ) is a power
of 2 [25]. The dimension n = n(λ) is taken to be 1, and odd modulus q = q(λ), a
distribution χ = χ(λ) over R, and an integer N + N (λ) which is set to be larger than
(2n + 1) log (q). Computations are based on the plaintext space R2 , although it is
possible to use larger spaces.
The operations defined by the BGV scheme are as follows:
● Encryption. Given a message m ∈ R2 , let m = (m, 0, 0, . . . , 0) ∈ R2N , where N =
(2n + 1)( log (q)), for an odd modulus, q. Then the output ciphertext is given
as c = m + AT r ∈ Rqn+1 , where A is the matrix of public keys and r is a vector
of noise from χ2N .
● Decryption. Given a ciphertext c and the secret key s, compute
m = (c, s mod q) mod 2, where c, s mod q is the noise associated with s.
● Arithmetic operations. This scheme supports a number of operations includ-
ing element-wise addition, subtraction, and multiplication; scalar arithmetic; and
automorphic rotations that support efficient polynomial arithmetic (e.g., shift-
register encoding). These operations take ciphertext as their input and produce
ciphertext as their output. They produce accurate results, but the computation
overhead is very high. Our aim is to reduce this computation cost to make
homomorphic encryption feasible for widespread use.

2.3.2 HElib
This section describes the platform, modules, and algorithms that serve as the founda-
tion of HElib. Figure 2.2 shows the HElib block diagram. The structure of the platform

EncryptedArray
Routing plaintext slots
FHEcontext
parameters
Crypto

KeySwitching FHE Ctxt

Matrices for key-switching KeyGen/Enc/Dec Ciphertext operations

DoubleCRT
polynomial arithmetic

CModulus PAlgebraMod IndexSet/IndexMap

polynomials mod p plaintext-slot algebra Indexing utilities
Math

bluestein PAlgebra NumbTh timing

FFT/IFFT Structure of Zm* Miscellaneous utilities

Figure 2.2 A block diagram of the Homomorphic-Encryption library. Reprinted

with permission from Halevi S. An Implementation of homomorphic
encryption. GitHubRepository, https://github com/shaih/HElib. 2013
 Nomad: a framework for ensuring data confidentiality 29

is based on two major components: the underlying Math layer and the operational
Cryptography layer.
The Math layer is implemented using the NTL math library [26], which consists
of modules to support the creation of the mathematical structures along with defini-
tions for operations on these structures. These modules include PAlgebra, NumbTh,
timing, bluestein, CModulus, PAlgebraMod, and IndexSet/IndexMap. These
are used to construct the mathematical structures needed for computation, includ-
ing the structure of Z∗m from PAlgebra, miscellaneous utilities from NumbTh, a
way to facilitate timing within the system from timing, and the fast computation
of arbitrary length FFTs from bluestein. CModulus enables modular arithmetic
over polynomials, PAlgebraMod defines component-wise plaintext-slot arithmetic,
and IndexSet/IndexMap provides indexing utilities that are needed for the complex
matrix operations that are involved. The second component of the Math layer consists
of a module to enable the Double-Chinese Remainder Theorem (Double-CRT) repre-
sentation of polynomials. The Double-CRT representation of polynomials provides a
way to efficiently perform arithmetic on large polynomials by encoding polynomials
into vectors in such a way that it allows for component-wise operations. See [16] for
additional details.
The second layer of the HElib platform is the Cryptography layer. The modules
included in this layer are KeySwitching, which is used for storing the matrices needed
for key-switching, and FHE, which consists of all of the cryptographic operations such
as Key Generation, Encryption, and Decryption. The Ctxt module is used to perform
all of the operations on the ciphertext, and the EncryptedArray is needed to support
routing of the plaintext slots for operations. The final module that is used in HElib is
FHEContext, which is used to keep track of all the parameters throughout the system.
HElib parameters. HElib uses the following parameters for configuration:
● k: The security parameter (default = 80) is analogous to the security parameter λ
and is typically on the order of 102 .
● m, p, r: provides the native plaintext space by Z[X ]/(m (X ), pr ), where m is
defined by the security parameter, k.
● d: degree of the field extension (default = 1). The degree of the field extension
defines how polynomials will factor in the field. The default value of d = 1
indicates that the polynomials will split into linear (degree 1) factors.
● R: number of rounds (default = 1).
● c: number of columns in the key-switching matrices (default = 2).
● L: number of levels in the modulus chain (default is heuristically determined).
● s: minimum number of plaintext slots (default = 0).

2.4 GPU-based acceleration of BGV FHE

Since their introduction in the 1980s, GPUs have evolved from being used in basic dis-
play applications to more complex computations (e.g., 3D rendering). Only recently
(2007) have GPUs become more widely available, as General Purpose computing on
30 Data security in cloud computing

Graphics Processing Units (GPGPUs), due to NVIDIA’s Compute Unified Device

Architecture (CUDA) [27]. CUDA has enabled the management of the multitude of
cores that are used on GPUs.
With these advances, single GPUs are now able to function akin to a mobile
high-performance computing (HPC) device. They are also easily reprogrammable,
which makes them well suited for military and mobile applications. For example, a
GPU on a Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) is able to process data at a near real-time
rate and send time-sensitive feedback to decision makers instead of having to process
later at a remote site.
We used GPU-based parallelisation as a mechanism to accelerate the processing
of the algorithms in HElib. The first step in this process was to profile the HElib and
Number Theory Library (NTL) code, beginning with the encoding, encryption, and
arithmetic operations. Various HElib functions were profiled, including the algorithms
for key generation, encryption, decryption, addition, and multiplication. The results of
the HElib profiling are presented in the Implementation (Section 2.6) and Evaluation
(Section 2.7) sections.
After performing the code profiling, we were able to identify portions of the
code where there are combinations of algorithms which are particularly time con-
suming and repetitive. These algorithms are more computationally intensive than
the CUDA overhead, and thus are good candidates for parallelisation on GPUs. We
factored the CUDA overhead into our calculations in order to better approximate
the actual speedup gained from parallelisation using the GPU. The CUDA over-
head stems from the device memory allocation, host-to-device memory transfers,
device-to-host memory transfers, and memory de-allocation. Table 2.5 describes the
typical CUDA overhead required for GPU kernel executions. It should be noted that
when executing any GPU device code, a one-time GPU initialisation cost is also
incurred along with the previously mentioned CUDA overhead. This GPU initiali-
sation time should be taken into account when porting sections of code to the GPU.
Based on Amdahl’s law, we identified sections of code with the most potential for
parallelisation.
This approach was successfully taken to identify that parallelisation of the
BluesteinInit() and BluesteinFFT() functions could be a potential source of speedup
within HElib. The call sequences showed that, in general, the BluesteinFFT() func-
tion is called extensively by HElib. For example, the HElib profiling results seen in
Table 2.2 show that the tasks of generating key switching matrices and performing
key switching are computationally intensive, and these tasks make extensive use of
the Bluestein FFT algorithm. When performing a simple workload of adding two
numbers (which includes HElib initialisation, key generation, encryption, addition
of two integers, and decryption), the BluesteinInit() and BluesteinFFT() functions
take approximately 10% and 46% of the total execution time, respectively. These
two functions were then profiled to determine portions of code which were compu-
tationally intensive and could be performed in parallel. With identified portions of
code that could be calculated independently, portions of the Bluestein FFT code were
ported to the NVIDIA GPU using CUDA. The performance results can be seen in the
Implementation (Section 2.6) section.
 Nomad: a framework for ensuring data confidentiality 31

2.5 Application: CallForFire

In order to demonstrate the utility of Nomad in a mission-critical scenario, we devel-
oped an application using the Nomad framework [24,28]. This application, called
CallForFire, anticipates a tactical environment in the future where critical infor-
mation could be communicated and processed in a cloud environment. CallForFire
implements the “call for indirect fire” protocol used in the battlefield.
A tactic that military units use during engagements is the “call for indirect fire” to
destroy enemy positions [29]. The players in the call for fire are the Forward Observer
(FO), the Fire Direction Center (FDC), the Firing Unit (FU ), and the High-Value
Target (HVT ). The HVT is the enemy target that needs to be destroyed. The FDC is the
central command who has the technologies to compute and analyse fire data, and the
authority to initiate a fire mission. The FDC receives calls for fire from the FOs and
directs the FU s. The mission of the FO is to identify and locate HVT s, perform calls
for fire, adjust the calls for fire, and report the outcome of the fire. Other concepts
include Observer Target Line (OTL), which is a straight line projected from the FO to
the HVT ; Observer-Target Direction (OTdirection ), which is the angle (azimuth) between
the FO and the HVT ; and Observer-Target Distance (OTdistance ), which represents the
distance from the observer to the target. The OTdistance and OTdirection are two important
factors in determining the location of the HVT s.
FOs are typically sent into the field in advance to explore the area and collect
intelligence. The intelligence collected is very sensitive and can directly impact the
success of the mission. Any leakage of this sensitive data can jeopardise the security
and safety of the defense personnel, in particular the FO. The data shared among
the allied players must be protected to preserve its integrity, confidentiality, and
availability.
The protocol is as follows: A FO spots a HVT (which could be a building, cars,
etc.), collects all pertinent data about the HVT including OTdistance and OTdirection ,
and sends it to the FDC to request a call for indirect fire. The FDC computes and
analyses the firing data to determine the courses of action. If the resulting information
is deemed accurate, the FDC initiates a fire mission to destroy the HVT and sends it
to the FU . The FU takes action and destroys the HVT by firing for effect.
CallForFire uses the Military Grid Reference System (MGRS)[30] as the under-
lying geographical reference system. The MGRS conveniently partitions the world
into 100,000-meter square grids, with each coordinate being a 5-digit integer. Each
MGRS coordinate consists of three components: the grid zone designator (GZD)—a
double digit integer followed by a letter, the 100,000-meter square identifier SQID —
two letters, and the numerical location (Easting and Northing) within the 100,000
meter square—both five digit integers. Given the 100,000 meter square, a reference
point, and a reference bearing (direction), the numerical location of any position can
be computed.
To model the computation of the HVT location in the MGRS, assume first that
the GZD and the SQID are known. Also assume that the (fixed) numerical location
of the FO within the 100,000-meter square is known and the HVT is inside the same
square. Now, let FOeasting be the easting of the FO, and FOnorthing the northing of the
32 Data security in cloud computing

FO. Let also HVTeasting be the HVT easting, HVTnorthing the HVT northing, and θ the
HVT bearing. Then, the HVT ’s location is calculated as follows:

HVTeasting = FOeasting + OTdistance × sin(θ)

HVTnorthing = FOnorthing + OTdistance × cos(θ)

where the easting and northing distances are measured in meters (m) and the θ is
measured in angular mils (to the nearest integer) from 0 mils North.
It will be assumed that the positions of the FOs and FU s will be known to the
FDC. Multiple FOs may call for fire support on the same HVT . When this happens,
the nearest available FU to the HVT will be directed to fire on the HVT . The distance
between the FU and the HVT is calculated as follows:

−HVT = (FUeasting − HVTeasting ) + (FUnorthing − HVTnorthing )

2 2 2
DistanceFU

Note that the actual distance between the FU and HVT is found by taking the
square root of the above equation. HElib currently does not support the square root
operation, but distances can still be compared using the above formula.

2.5.1 CallForFire operational workflow

The CallForFire operational workflow describes how the call for indirect/supporting
fire procedure is implemented by the CallForFire application. Nomad currently sup-
ports the following integer operations in the encrypted domain: addition, subtraction,
multiplication, and negation. For this simple scenario, we assume that all locations
(except the FDC) are inside of the same MGRS zone.

1. The FO detects an HVT in the field, estimates its distance and bearing, and enters
the data into the FO client application.
2. The FO client application uses the FDC public key to homomorphically encrypt
the FO’s location (easting and northing) and the HVT ’s distance and bearing, and
sends them to the FDC.
3. The FDC outsources the computation of the HVT ’s location to the Nomad cloud
service by sending the homomorphically encrypted FO’s location, the HVT ’s
bearing and distance, and locations of the available FUs over to the cloud.
4. The cloud homomorphically computes the HVT ’s absolute location and selects
the nearest FU to direct fire on the HVT.
5. The cloud sends the HVT ’s location and FU selection back to the FDC.
6. The FDC decrypts the HVT ’s location and the FU selection, then makes the final
decision to initiate the firing operation.
7. The FDC encrypts the HVT ’s location using the FU public key and sends the
firing command to the selected FU.
8. The selected FU decrypts the HVT ’s location and directs fire on the HVT.
 Nomad: a framework for ensuring data confidentiality 33

2.6 Implementation
The Nomad framework is designed to be modular and extensible, using Thrift [31] as
the underlying client/server framework. We chose Thrift, which is based on the remote
procedure call (RPC) protocol, in order to abstract away the details of the communica-
tion between the client and server. The Cloud Storage Service uses Google’s LevelDB
[32] for its underlying database, but the framework can easily be adapted to use other
NoSQL databases such as Apache Accumulo [33]. The current implementation of
Nomad uses the Xen hypervisor [34], which is open source and used by major public
cloud service providers today. The GPU-based acceleration mechanism is integrated
with HElib and uses the Nvidia CUDA [27] parallel computing platform and pro-
gramming model, as described in Section 2.4. For the Client Management Service
implementation, we used the CppCMS [35] web development framework to integrate
the various C++ libraries, including HElib, Thrift, LevelDB, and CUDA. Nomad’s
modular design allows developers to extend the framework, including using different
hypervisors for virtual machine management, and choosing different key/value stores
for back-end storage.
We implemented the CallForFire application using the Nomad framework. Open-
Layers [36], an open source javascript library, is used for loading, displaying and
rendering map data in the browser. Since the map data needs to be completely
encrypted within the Cloud Storage Service, standard GIS databases such as Ora-
cle Spatial and Graph or PostGIS could not be used for this purpose. Traditional GIS
systems perform the computations on the server side, which means that the plaintext
data must be visible to the server when using these systems, thereby precluding their
use in the CallForFire application. Instead, LevelDB is used for storing the encrypted

Figure 2.3 Screenshot of the CallForFire application in a web browser

34 Data security in cloud computing

GIS data. Since LevelDB provides an ordered mapping from keys to values, one of the
main advantages of using LevelDB is that the keys and values are arbitrary byte arrays
and are automatically compressed using the Snappy compression library [37]. The
Snappy compression library has fast and reasonable compression, which is advanta-
geous given the large size of the ciphertext. For performing operations in different
geographical coordinate systems within CallForFire, we leveraged the GeographicLib
[38] library.
Figure 2.3 is a screenshot of the actual CallForFire GUI in a web browser. It
shows an example scenario with the following players: one FDC, four FOs, five
FU s, and three HVT s. In this scenario, the FDC has computed the locations of the
three HVT s using the information given by the FOs. It has also selected the nearest
FU for each HVT as indicated by the lines between them on the map.

2.7 Experiments
We performed two different sets of experiments to analyse the feasibility of the overall
Nomad approach. The first set of experiments focused on the optimisation of the HElib
library using the GPU-based parallelisation approach. The second set of experiments
analysed the feasibility of the CallForFire application. HElib uses the following main
parameters: R (number of rounds), p (plaintext base), r (lifting), d (degree of the
field extension), c (number of columns in the key-switching matrices), k (security
parameter), L (number of levels in the modulus chain), s (minimum number of slots),
and m (modulus). HElib is initialised by configuring the parameters R, p, r, d, c, k,
and s. The parameters L and m are automatically generated by HElib based on these
other parameters.

2.7.1 Performance of the GPU-based parallelisation

For this set of experiments, the following HElib parameters defined in Section 2.3.2
were used for configuration: R = 2, p = 7919, r = 1, d = 1, c = 2, k = 80, L = 3,
s = 0. Table 2.1 describes the test environment.
HElib profiling. A simple workload consisting of the encryption of two integers
and their addition was used to profile HElib to identify potential subroutines for GPU

Table 2.1 Test environment

Operating system CentOS 7

Server Dell T630 Server
CPU Intel Xeon CPU E5-2620 v3 2.4 GHz
Memory 16 GB Memory
GPU NVIDIA Quadro K4000
Cores 768 CUDA Cores
Driver CUDA Driver 7.0, Runtime 7.0
Version CUDA Capability 3.0
 Nomad: a framework for ensuring data confidentiality 35

parallelisation. The timing results reported are the averages (i.e., mean value) taken
over 50 runs of this simple workload. Table 2.2 details the comparison between the
CPU HElib and GPU HElib implementations. We used the TAU Parallel Performance
System [39] to perform the code profiling. It can be seen that almost all of the HElib
modules benefited from the GPU implementation. These results highlight the speedup
that can be gained when these methods are ported to the GPU.
Tables 2.3 and 2.4 compare the execution time of the CPU HElib implementation
to the GPU HElib implementation. It should be noted that the workload execution
times reported do not include the GPU initialisation time. From these tables, it can
be seen that implementing the BluesteinFFT() function using the GPU results in a
speedup of 2.1× compared to the CPU implementation.

Table 2.2 HElib profiling results

HElib CPU HELib GPU HELib

modules execution time (ms) execution time (ms)

FHE context 1,278 1,136

Mod chain 412 298
Secret key 245 36
Key switching matrices 1,826 509
Encoding single value 0.108 0.114
Encrypting single value 65 65
Adding two values 1 0.465
Decrypting result 28 8
Decode result 0.116 0.0358

Table 2.3 Timing comparison of BluesteinInit( ) CPU and GPU

implementation (256 threads per block)

Function Inclusive Number of Application Workload

call execution (ms) calls execution (%) execution (ms)

CPU 404 8 10.1 3,970

GPU 300 8 7.7 3,836

Table 2.4 Comparison of BluesteinFFT( ) CPU and GPU implementation

(256 threads per block)

Function Inclusive Number of Application Workload

call execution (ms) calls execution (%) execution (ms)

CPU 1,826 268 45.7 3,970

GPU 223 268 10.2 2,119
36 Data security in cloud computing

Table 2.5 GPU overhead

BluesteinInit() BluesteinFFT() Average

GPU initialisation 38.561 ms 92.713 ms 80.226 ms

CUDA memory allocation 151.01 μs 32.889 μs 32.855 μs
CUDA memory copy, NA 4.8030 μs 4.8040 μs
host to device
CUDA memory copy, 6.3040 μs 6.2040 μs 6.2180 μs
device to host
CUDA free 72.231 μs 80.318 μs 72.381 μs
Over head 230 μs/14 KB 124 μs/14 KB 116 μs/14 KB
kernel execution

Table 2.6 Comparison of CPU and GPU BluesteinInit/FFT implementation

combinations (256 threads per block)

CUDA Workload Total

overhead (ms) execution (ms) execution (ms)

CPU BluesteinInit(),
CPU BluesteinFFT() 0 3,970 3,970
GPU BluesteinInit(),
CPU BluesteinFFT() 56 3,836 3,892
CPU BluesteinInit(),
GPU BluesteinFFT() 46 2,119 2,166
GPU BluesteinInit(),
GPU BluesteinFFT() 43 2,033 2,077

Table 2.5 describes the GPU overhead associated with the respective GPU imple-
mentation of BluesteinInit() and BluesteinFFT(). The GPU overhead, along with the
one-time GPU initialisation, provide the minimum CPU execution time savings nec-
essary in order to make utilising the GPU worthwhile. This cost needs to be taken
into account when porting code to the GPU.
HElib GPU parallelisation. With BluesteinInit() and BluesteinFFT() ported to
the GPU, combinations of the CPU and GPU implementations were profiled. Table 2.6
shows these results in detail. It should be noted that the CUDA overhead is a com-
bination of the GPU initialisation and GPU kernel overhead as described previously.
This table shows how much time savings is gained from each of the two functions
when using combinations of the GPU and CPU for their implementation. For exam-
ple, implementing the BluesteinFFT() function in the GPU yields significantly higher
speedup than implementing the BluesteinInit() function in the GPU. This is because
the BluesteinFFT() function is called many more times than the BluesteinInit() func-
tion. From this, one can infer that the time savings is proportional to the number of
times each function is called.
 Nomad: a framework for ensuring data confidentiality 37

Table 2.7 Comparison of workload execution time when varying the number
of threads per block using GPU BluesteinInit/FFT implementation

CUDA Workload Total

overhead (ms) execution (ms) execution (ms)

32 Threads/block 47 2,051 2,099

64 Threads/block 45 2,038 2,084
128 Threads/block 47 2,043 2,090
256 Threads/block 45 2,037 2,082
512 Threads/block 44 2,040 2,084
1,024 Threads/block 45 2,038 2,084
0 Threads/block
(CPU implementation) 0 3,970 3,970

Multiple threads can be assigned to process the data stored in each memory
block within the GPU. This has the potential of speeding up data processing within
the GPU. The number of threads per block can be customised. In Table 2.7, various
numbers of threads per block were executed and profiled. The results presented in
the table reveal that there is only a slight decrease in execution time when increasing
the number of threads per block. This confirms NVIDIA’s CUDA GPU Occupancy
Calculator which details no effect of increasing the number of threads per block when
utilising Compute Capability 3.0 and 64 registers per thread. Also note that the average
overhead for the GPU kernel execution is 116 μs per 14 KB processed by the GPU.

2.7.2 CallForFire performance

We performed experiments to analyse the performance of CallForFire with respect
to the overhead associated with Computation, Storage, and Data Transmission. We
ignored the latency between browser and server. For all the experiments, the follow-
ing parameters are fixed: R = 1, r = 1, d = 1, c = 2, and s = 0. We adjusted the
parameters p and k in order to evaluate the performance tradeoffs associated with
having a larger integer space and a higher security level, respectively. The parameters
L and m are automatically generated by HElib based on the other parameters.
The experiments were performed using two HP Z420 desktops with 16 GB RAM
and 500 GB storage, and one MacBook Pro with 2.6 GHz Intel Core i7, 16 GB RAM,
and 500 GB storage. The setup is as follows: The FO module is run on a MacBook
Pro laptop, the FDC module is deployed on a Z420 desktop, and the Cloud module
is deployed on a Z420 desktop.
CallForFire computation overhead. To measure the computation overhead, we
performed two sets of computations: (1) calculation of the HVT ’s location and, (2)
firing asset selection. In the HVT location calculation, we measured the time it took
to homomorphically encrypt ten individual locations consisting of six parameters
(GZD, SQID , FOeasting , FOnorthing , OTdistance , OTdirection ) each, computed the numerical
location (easting and northing) of the HVT for each FO, and decrypted the HVT
38 Data security in cloud computing

Table 2.8 Average computation overhead in seconds with fixed p = 9576890767

(10 digits)

Security 80 100 120

parameter (k)
Type Individual Batched Individual Batched Individual Batched

Encrypt location 702.399 63.077 782.689 71.873 831.919 77.196

Decrypt location 600.704 165.279 692.349 217.052 760.939 217.062
Compute location 212.197 21.323 221.747 27.355 237.119 23.255
Compute distance 271.294 26.386 283.755 28.794 331.041 33.288
Store location 2.474 0.249 2.799 0.284 2.811 0.282
Retrieve location 16.383 1.558 18.093 1.800 21.831 1.964

locations. We also measured the time it took to store and retrieve ten encrypted
locations from the storage. In the firing asset selection, we measured the time it took
to compute the distance between ten FUs and ten HVTs pairwise. We repeated both
experiments 100 times and computed the averages. Table 2.8 summarises the results
of these experiments and gives a comparison between the performance of individual
and batched operations. When performing operations in batched mode, an input
array with multiple elements is passed in to the storage system. The homomorphic
encryption operations can then be performed on all of the elements of the array within
the same operation. With individual operations, one data element (i.e., an integer) is
placed into the input array, which is then passed to the storage system. Based on the
results of these experiments, it is best to use batch mode when possible, which can
reduce the overhead significantly.
Transmission and storage overhead. For the transmission and storage overhead,
we measured the time it took for the FO to encrypt and transmit the location infor-
mation to the FDC, and for the FDC to store the information in its database. We
considered scenarios for 100 FOs and calculated the averages. The time it takes to
transmit an encrypted location and store it in the database is about 22 times longer
than when the location is not encrypted. For the storage space overhead, the average
space used to store a location using FHE is 8.96 megabytes, whereas the average for
a location without using FHE is 17.6 bytes. This significant storage space overhead
is a limitation common to all lattice-based homomorphic encryption schemes.

2.8 Related work

Much of the early and continued support for research in FHE has come from govern-
ment sources like the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA). Early
FHE schemes were many orders of magnitude too slow for practical use, and DARPA
led a multi-year effort, PROgramming Computation on EncryptEd Data (PROCEED),
to improve their computational efficiency [40].
 Nomad: a framework for ensuring data confidentiality 39

One line of research has focused on hardware-based optimisations of FHE,

including the use of FPGAs to accelerate portions of the homomorphic encryption
computations [41–43]. In addition to the hardware-based optimisation work that has
utilised FPGAs, Worcester Polytechnic Institute showed some improvement using
GPGPUs [44,45].
Another line of research has been in software-based optimisations. While BGV
[21] and HElib [16] are the most widely used scheme and implementation of FHE,
respectively, a number of schemes are being proposed and new implementations are
coming online. FHE implementations based on the NTRU cryptographic scheme
showed early progress, most notably the work by Rohloff and Cousins [46]. Ducas
and Micciancio [47] released an open source implementation of FHE that reports
bootstrapping times of 0.5 s for a non-packed ciphertext encrypting a single bit [48].
Some of the software-based optimisations have focused on specialised homo-
morphic encryption schemes for specific application domains. For instance, Rohloff
et al. [49] propose the use of FHE for secure and efficient communication with Voice
over Internet Protocol (VoIP). Pedrouzo-Ulloa et al. [50] developed a multivariate
RLWE FHE scheme for encrypted image processing. Microsoft Research developed
an implementation of the FHE-based YASHE scheme [51], Simple Encrypted Arith-
metic Library (SEAL) [52] which will enable biological data science researchers to
comply with patient privacy laws. SEAL v2.0 [53] utilises the FV [20] scheme rather
than YASHE due to that scheme’s improved “noise growth”, allowing for smaller
parameters. TheYASHE and FV schemes are both RLWE-based and many researchers
consider them to be promising.

2.9 Conclusion
In this chapter, we presented Nomad, a framework for developing secure and privacy-
preserving applications in the cloud. In particular, Nomad can be used to build
mission-critical cloud-based applications with ensured data confidentiality. Nomad
consists of a fully homomorphic encryption-based key/value storage system that pro-
vides a means for efficient storage, retrieval, and processing of encrypted data stored
in the cloud. The storage system was developed using HElib, an open source homo-
morphic encryption library. HElib implements the BGV homomorphic encryption
scheme, which is based on the RLWE technique. We employed a GPU-based approach
to parallelise some of the underlying HElib algorithms to accelerate the HElib oper-
ations. We performed experiments to analyse the performance of the GPU-based
acceleration. These experiments showed a 2.1× speedup of certain HElib operations.
The results of this approach are promising in that portions of HElib may be accelerated,
thereby leading to more uses of homomorphic encryption in practical applications.
To analyse the feasibility of the Nomad framework, we implemented CallForFire,
a cloud-based mission-critical defense application. CallForFire takes advantage of
Nomad’s Cloud Storage Service to encrypt and compute enemy target locations in
the battlefield. CallForFire is very secure, as the data stored in the system is never
decrypted within the cloud storage service, which is where all the computations take
40 Data security in cloud computing

place. CallForFire uses very limited operations on integers and is interactive, which
made it suitable for development using the Nomad framework. Despite the fact that
the homomorphic operations are slow, the performance of the CallForFire application
highlights the feasibility of such a system in a real-life scenario.
While the overall performance of HElib may still be impractical for many appli-
cations, certain interactive applications, such as CallForFire, can still make use of
HElib in a limited context to enhance data confidentiality. Further development of
secure computing techniques that protect data-in-processing, such as homomorphic
encryption, will likely accelerate the adoption of cloud computing by organisations
with sensitive data.

2.10 Future research challenges

Encrypted computing that ensures data security and privacy consists of two primary
research areas: FHE and multi-party computation (MPC) [54]. Both FHE and MPC
enable secure storage and computation. However, FHE is expensive in terms of com-
putation with minimal communication overhead, while MPC is expensive in terms
of communication with minimal computation overhead [55]. Furthermore, FHE only
requires a single (possibly untrusted) server, while MPC requires each party to work
from their own (trusted) server [56]. An approach for increasing the performance of
HElib would be to incorporate MPC techniques into the library.
Using CUDA GPU acceleration techniques such as page-locked host memory,
asynchronous memory transfers, and streams can be used to further optimise the HElib
operations. Faster NVIDIA GPUs can also be used to parallelise HElib, specifically
using higher compute capabilities such as the Tesla K80 with Compute Capability 3.7.
HElib also can be distributed across multiple nodes to speed up the homomorphic
operations.
Another approach for optimising homomorphic encryption is through hardware-
based parallelisation techniques. Much of the research in hardware-based parallelisa-
tion focuses on FPGAs [42,43]. FPGAs enable the implementation of algorithms at
the hardware level, which is faster than the software-based implementations. A hybrid
approach that combines FPGAs and GPUs has the potential to further improve the
performance of homomorphic encryption.

References
[1] Grance T, Mell P. The NIST Definition of Cloud Computing. Recom-
mendations of the National Institute of Standards and Technology. 2011
September.
[2] Alliance CS. The Notorious Nine: Cloud Computing Top Threats in 2013. Top
Threats Working Group. 2013.
[3] GCN: Like it or not, cloud computing is here to stay; 2011. Available
from: https://gcn.com/microsites/2011/cloud-computing-download/cloud-
computing-application-development.aspx. [Online; accessed 20-Dec-2016].
 Nomad: a framework for ensuring data confidentiality 41

[4] Venom: Virtualized Environment Neglected Operations Manipulation; 2015.

Available from: http://venom.crowdstrike.com/. [Online; accessed 20-Dec-
2016].
[5] Apecechea GI, Inci MS, Eisenbarth T, Sunar B. Fine grain Cross-VM
Attacks on Xen and VMware are possible! IACR Cryptology ePrint Archive.
2014;2014:248.
[6] Apecechea GI, Inci MS, Eisenbarth T, Sunar B. Wait a minute! A fast, Cross-
VM attack on AES. IACR Cryptology ePrint Archive. 2014;2014:435.
[7] Apecechea GI, Eisenbarth T, Sunar B. S$A: A Shared Cache Attack That Works
across Cores and Defies VM Sandboxing – And Its Application to AES. In:
IEEE Symposium on Security and Privacy. IEEE Computer Society; 2015.
p. 591–604.
[8] Inci MS, Gulmezoglu B, Irazoqui G, Eisenbarth T, Sunar B. Seriously, get off
my cloud! Cross-VM RSA Key Recovery in a Public Cloud. IACR Cryptology
ePrint Archive. 2015;2015:898.
[9] D’Antoine SM. Exploiting Processor Side Channels To Enable Cross VM
Malicious Code Execution. Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute; 2015.
[10] Liu F, Yarom Y, Ge Q, Heiser G, Lee RB. Last-Level Cache Side-Channel
Attacks are Practical. In: IEEE Symposium on Security and Privacy. IEEE
Computer Society; 2015. p. 605–622.
[11] Litchfield A, Shahzad A. Virtualization Technology: Cross-VM Cache Side
Channel Attacks make it Vulnerable. CoRR. 2016;abs/1606.01356.
[12] Nimbostratus: Tools for fingerprinting and exploiting Amazon cloud infras-
tructures; 2015. Available from: http://andresriancho.github.io/nimbostratus/.
[Online; accessed 20-Dec-2016].
[13] Gentry C. Fully Homomorphic Encryption Using Ideal Lattices. In: Proceed-
ings of the Forty-First Annual ACM Symposium on Theory of Computing.
STOC’09. New York, NY, USA: ACM; 2009. p. 169–178.
[14] Halevi S, Shoup V. Algorithms in helib. In: Advances in Cryptology–CRYPTO
2014. Berlin: Springer; 2014.
[15] Parmar PV, Padhar SB, Patel SN, Bhatt NI, Jhaveri RH. Survey of Vari-
ous Homomorphic Encryption algorithms and Schemes. International Journal
of Computer Applications. 2014 April;91(8). Published by Foundation of
Computer Science, New York, USA.
[16] Halevi S, Shoup V. Design and Implementation of a Homomorphic-Encryption
Library. 2013; IBM Research.
[17] Micciancio D. A first glimpse of cryptography’s Holy Grail. Communications
of the ACM. 2010;53(3):96–96.
[18] Rivest RL, Adleman L, Dertouzos ML. On data banks and privacy homomor-
phisms. Foundations of Secure Computation. 1978;4(11):169–180.
[19] Cousins D, Rohloff K, Peikert C, Sumorok D. SIPHER: Scalable imple-
mentation of primitives for homomorphic encryption. DTIC Document;
2015.
[20] Fan J, Vercauteren F. Somewhat Practical Fully Homomorphic Encryption.
IACR Cryptology ePrint Archive. 2012;2012:144.
42 Data security in cloud computing

[21] Brakerski Z, Gentry C, Vaikuntanathan V. Fully Homomorphic Encryption

without Bootstrapping; 2011. Cryptology ePrint Archive, Report 2011/277.
[22] Regev O. The learning with errors problem. In: 25th Annual IEEE Conference
on Computational Complexity, CCC 2010; 2010.
[23] Micciancio D, Regev O. Lattice-based cryptography. In: Post-quantum cryp-
tography. Berlin: Springer; 2009. p. 147–191.
[24] Diallo MH, August M, Hallman R, Kline M, Au H, Beach V. Nomad: A
Framework for Developing Mission-Critical Cloud-Based Applications. In:
10th International Conference on Availability, Reliability and Security, ARES,
Toulouse, France, August 24–27; 2015.
[25] Halevi S. An implementation of homomorphic encryption. GitHubRepository,
https://github com/shaih/HElib. 2013.
[26] ShoupV. NTL:A library for doing number theory; Version 5.5.2, 2010. [Online;
accessed 20-Dec-2016]. http://shoup.net/ntl/.
[27] Nvidia. CUDA C Programming Guide; 2015. [Online; accessed 29-Jun-
2014].
[28] Diallo M, August M, Hallman R, Kline M, Au H, Beach V. CallForFire: A
Mission-Critical Cloud-based Application Built Using the Nomad Framework.
In: Financial Cryptography and Data Security. Berlin: Springer; 2016.
[29] Tactics, Techniques, and Procedures for Observed Fire, Field Manual 6-30;
1991.
[30] FM 3-25.26 Map Reading and Land Navigation; 2001.
[31] The apache thrift software framework; 2015. Available from: https://thrift.
apache.org/. [Online; accessed 20-Dec-2016].
[32] Jeff Dean SG. Level DB: A fast and lightweight key/value database library
by Google; 2015. [Online; accessed 20-Dec-2016]. https://code.google.com/
p/leveldb/.
[33] Halldrsson GJ. Apache Accumulo for Developers. Packt Publishing; 2013.
[34] Xen Project; 2015. Available from: https://www.xenproject.org/. [Online;
accessed 20-Dec-2016].
[35] CppCMS – High Performance C++ Web Framework. Available from:
http://cppcms.com/wikipp/en/page/main.
[36] OpenLayers 3: A high-performance, feature-packed library for all your map-
ping needs.; 2015. Available from: http://openlayers.org/. [Online; accessed
20-Dec-2016].
[37] snappy: A fast compressor and decompressor; 2015. Available from:
http://google.github.io/snappy/. [Online; accessed 20-Dec-2016].
[38] GeographicLib; 2015. Available from: http://geographiclib.sourceforge.net/.
[Online; accessed 20-Dec-2016].
[39] Shende S, Malony AD. The Tau Parallel Performance System. IJHPCA.
2006;20(2):287–311.
[40] Libicki MC, Tkacheva O, Feng C, Hemenway B. Ramifications of DARPA’s
Programming Computation on Encrypted Data Program. RAND. 2014.
 Nomad: a framework for ensuring data confidentiality 43

[41] Cousins DB, Golusky J, Rohloff K, Sumorok D. An FPGA co-processor imple-

mentation of Homomorphic Encryption. In: IEEE High Performance Extreme
Computing Conference, HPEC 2014, Waltham, MA, USA, September 9–11,
2014. Piscataway, NJ: IEEE; 2014. p. 1–6.
[42] Cousins DB, Rohloff K, Peikert C, Schantz R. An update on SIPHER (scalable
implementation of primitives for homomorphic encryption)—FPGA imple-
mentation using Simulink. In: High Performance Extreme Computing (HPEC),
2012 IEEE Conference on. Piscataway, NJ: IEEE; 2012. p. 1–5.
[43] Cilardo A, Argenziano D. Securing the cloud with reconfigurable computing:
An FPGA accelerator for homomorphic encryption. In: 2016 Design, Automa-
tion & Test in Europe Conference & Exhibition (DATE). Piscataway, NJ: IEEE;
2016. p. 1622–1627.
[44] Wang W, Hu Y, Chen L, Huang X, Sunar B. Accelerating fully homomorphic
encryption using GPU. In: IEEE Conference on High Performance Extreme
Computing, HPEC 2012, Waltham, MA, USA, September 10–12, 2012.
Piscataway, NJ: IEEE; 2012. p. 1–5.
[45] Wang W, Hu Y, Chen L, Huang X, Sunar B. Exploring the feasibility of
fully homomorphic encryption. IEEE Transactions on Computers. 2015;64(3):
698–706.
[46] Rohloff K, Cousins DB. A scalable implementation of fully homomor-
phic encryption built on NTRU. In: International Conference on Financial
Cryptography and Data Security. Berlin: Springer; 2014. p. 221–234.
[47] Ducas L, Micciancio D. FHEW-A Fully Homomorphic Encryption Library;
2014. Available from: https://github.com/lducas/FHEW. [Online; accessed 20-
Dec-2016].
[48] Ducas L, Micciancio D. FHEW: bootstrapping homomorphic encryption in less
than a second. In: Annual International Conference on the Theory and Appli-
cations of Cryptographic Techniques. Berlin: Springer; 2015. p. 617–640.
[49] Rohloff K, Sumorok D, Cousins D. Scalable, Practical VoIP Teleconfer-
encing with End-to-End Homomorphic Encryption. IEEE Transactions on
Information Forensics and Security, Volume 12, p. 1031–1041, 2017.
[50] Pedrouzo-Ulloa A, Troncoso-Pastoriza JR, Pérez-González F. Multivariate
lattices for encrypted image processing. In: 2015 IEEE International Confer-
ence on Acoustics, Speech and Signal Processing (ICASSP). Piscataway, NJ:
IEEE; 2015. p. 1707–1711.
[51] Bos JW, Lauter K, Loftus J, Naehrig M. Improved security for a ring-based
fully homomorphic encryption scheme. In: IMA International Conference on
Cryptography and Coding. Berlin: Springer; 2013. p. 45–64.
[52] Dowlin N, Gilad-Bachrach R, Laine K, Lauter K, Naehrig M, Wernsing J.
Manual for Using Homomorphic Encryption for Bioinformatics. Microsoft
Research; 2015.
[53] Laine K, Player R. Release Notes for SEAL v2.0-beta. Microsoft Research;
2016.
44 Data security in cloud computing

[54] Cramer R, Damgård I. Multiparty computation: an introduction. In:

Contemporary Cryptology. Berlin: Springer; 2005. p. 41–87.
[55] Choudhury A, Loftus J, Orsini E, Patra A, Smart NP. Between a Rock
and a Hard Place: Interpolating between MPC and FHE. In: International
Conference on the Theory and Application of Cryptology and Information
Security. Berlin: Springer; 2013. p. 221–240.
[56] Archer DW, Bogdanov D, Pinkas B, Pullonen P. Maturity and performance
of programmable secure computation. IACR Cryptology ePrint Archive;
2015.
 Chapter 3
Preserving privacy in pre-classification volume
ray-casting of 3D images
Manoranjan Mohanty1 , Muhammad Rizwan Asghar2 ,
and Giovanni Russello2

Abstract
With the evolution of cloud computing, organizations are outsourcing the storage and
rendering of volume (i.e., 3D data) to cloud servers. Data confidentiality at the third-
party cloud provider, however, is one of the main challenges. Although state-of-the-art
non-homomorphic encryption schemes can protect confidentiality by encrypting the
volume, they do not allow rendering operations on the encrypted volumes. In this chap-
ter, we address this challenge by proposing 3DCrypt—a modified Paillier cryptosys-
tem scheme for multiuser settings that allows cloud datacenters to render the encrypted
volume. The rendering technique we consider in this work is the pre-classification
volume ray-casting. 3DCrypt is such that multiple users can render volumes with-
out sharing any encryption keys. 3DCrypt’s storage and computational overheads are
approximately 66.3 MB and 27 s, respectively, when rendering is performed on a
256 × 256 × 256 volume for a 256 × 256 image space. We have also proved that
3DCrypt is INDistinguishable under Chosen Plaintext Attack (IND-CPA) secure.

3.1 Introduction
Cloud computing is an attractive paradigm for accessing virtually unlimited storage
and computational resources. With its pay-as-you-go model, clients can access fast
and reliable hardware paying only for the resources they use, without the risk of
large upfront investments. Nowadays, it is very common to build applications for
multimedia content hosted in infrastructures run by third-party cloud providers. To
this end, cloud datacenters are also increasingly used by organizations for rendering
of images [1–3]. In these cloud-based rendering schemes, the data is typically stored

1
Center for Cyber Security, New York University, United Arab Emirates
2
Department of Computer Science, The University of Auckland, New Zealand
46 Data security in cloud computing

in the cloud datacenter, and on request, the data-to-image rendering operation is

performed at the cloud-end.
The data and the rendered image can contain critical information, which when
disclosed raises data confidentiality and privacy issues. For example, the data can be a
scanned MRI of a patient’s head, whose storage and rendering were outsourced to the
cloud by a hospital due to the adaption of the cloud-based medical imaging technique.
If processed in plaintext, both the data and the rendered image can reveal information
about the disease that the patient may be suffering from. Therefore, the data must
be hidden from the third-party cloud server, which we assume is honest-but-curious:
it honestly performs requested operation, but it can be curious to learn sensitive
information. The data encryption scheme is such that rendering can be performed on
the encrypted data. Although the rendered image must not disclose any information
to the cloud server, an authorized user (i.e., the one holding the encryption key) must
be able to discover the secret rendered image from the encrypted rendered image.
Ideally, one would like to use the fully homomorphic encryption scheme to
perform any type of computations over encrypted data [4]. However, current homo-
morphic encryption schemes are not computationally practical. Therefore, partial
homomorphic schemes have been typically used for the cloud-based encrypted pro-
cessing [5]. Using the partial homomorphic Shamir’s (k, n) secret sharing, Mohanty
et al. [6] proposed the encrypted domain pre-classification volume ray-casting. Their
work, however, cannot hide shape of the object from a datacenter and can disclose the
color of the object when k or more datacenters collude together. Recently, Chou and
Yang [7] used permutation and adjusted the color transfer function (used in render-
ing) such that critical information about the object can be hidden from the rendering
server. Their work, however, is not secure enough.
When working on encrypted data, a lot of attention is usually paid to the actual
scheme without considering key management, an aspect critical for organizations. In
a typical organization, issuing the same key to all employees, who want to share data,
is not feasible. In an ideal situation, each employee must have her own personal key
that can be used to access data encrypted by the key of any other employee. This sce-
nario is often referred to as the full-fledged multiuser model. When the employee
leaves the organization, the employee’s key must be revoked and the employee
must not be able to access any data (including her own data). However, the data
(including data of resigned employees) must be accessible to employees still holding
valid keys.
In this chapter, we present 3DCrypt, a cloud-based multiuser-encrypted domain
pre-classification volume ray-casting framework. The proposed method is an exten-
sion of an earlier published conference paper [8]. Our method is based on the modified
Paillier cryptosystem. Paillier cryptosystem is homomorphic only to addition and
scalar multiplication operations, whereas the pre-classification volume ray-casting
(as explained in Section 3.2.3) performs a number of operations, including additions,
scalar multiplications, and multiplications. The use of Paillier cryptosystem alone
therefore cannot hide shape of the object as the rendering of opacities, which renders
the shape, involves multiplications. We addressed this issue using a private–public
cloud model in such a way that rendering tasks can be distributed among the public
 Preserving privacy in pre-classification volume ray-casting 47

and private cloud servers without disclosing both shape and color of the object to any
of them.
Our contributions are summarized as follows:
● We provide a full-fledged multiuser scheme for the encrypted domain volume
rendering.
● We can hide both color and shape of the object from the cloud. The color and
shape are protected from the public cloud server by encrypting both the color and
opacity information and by performing rendering in an encrypted domain. The
color is protected from the private cloud server by performing rendering on the
encrypted color information. The shape is protected from the private cloud server
by hiding pixel positions of the image space.
● 3DCrypt is such that if both the private and public cloud servers collude, they can,
at most, learn shape of the object. The cloud servers can never know the secret
color from gathered information. Therefore, we provide more security against
collusion attacks than the state-of-the-art Shamir’s secret sharing-based schemes.
Our preliminary analysis performed on a single machine shows that 3DCrypt
requires significant overhead. According to our analysis, the computation cost at
the user end, however, can be affordable. Security analysis shows that 3DCrypt is
INDistinguishable under Chosen Plaintext Attack (IND-CPA) secure.
The rest of this chapter is organized as follows. Section 3.2 reviews existing
approaches for encrypted domain rendering and provides an overview of pre-
classification volume ray-casting. In Section 3.3, we describe our system model
and threat model. In Section 3.4, we provide an overview of 3DCrypt. Section 3.5
describes how we integrated Paillier cryptosystem to the pre-classification volume
ray-casting. Section 3.6 explains construction details and Section 3.7 provides secu-
rity analysis. In Section 3.8, we report results and performance analysis. Section 3.9
concludes our work.

3.2 Related work and background

In this section, we first provide a summary of existing encrypted domain volume
rendering schemes and then provide an overview of 3D imaging and volume ray-
casting.

3.2.1 Encrypted domain rendering

There are very few works in the direction of encrypted domain rendering using
the partial homomorphic encryption. Mohanty et al. [6] proposed the encrypted
pre-classification volume ray-casting and the encrypted post-classification volume
ray-casting [9] using Shamir’s (k, n) secret sharing. Their pre-classification volume
ray-casting scheme, however, cannot hide shape of the rendered object from the
cloud server. Furthermore, their scheme requires n datacenters and assumes that k of
them must never collude. Recently, Chou and Yang [7] proposed a privacy-preserving
48 Data security in cloud computing

volume ray-casting scheme that uses block-based permutation (which creates sub-
volumes from the volume and permutes the sub-volumes) and adjustment of transfer
function to hide both the volume and rendering tasks from the rendering server. Their
work, however, lacks to achieve privacy due to the loss of information from the
adjusted transfer table and the use of permutation.
In literature, there are alternative schemes to address privacy issues by outsourc-
ing of volume rendering and visualization tasks to a third-party server. Koller et al.
[10] protected the high-resolution data from an untrusted user by allowing only the
user to view the low-resolution results during interactive exploration. Similarly, Das-
gupta and Kosara [11] proposed to minimize the possible disclosure by combining
nonsensitive information with high-sensitivity information. The major issue with
such schemes is that they leak sensitive information. To minimize information loss,
we consider supporting the encrypted domain rendering.

3.2.2 3D images
A 3D image has three dimensions: width, height, and depth. In contrast to 2D images
(which has only width and height), a 3D image better represents the real world, which
is also 3D in nature. To this end, a pixel in a 3D image is represented by four values:
the R, G, B colors and the opacity.
We are increasingly using 3D images in our day-to-day life in various ways,
such as in cinema (3D movies), Google map, and medical imaging (3D MRI, 3D
ultrasound, etc.). Typically, a 3D image is rendered either from a stack of 2D images
or from a 3D volume data. The former rendering scheme, which is known as surface
rendering, produces inferior image quality than the later rendering scheme, which is
known as volume rendering. In this chapter, we consider volume rendering. There
are a number of ways how a 3D image can be rendered from a given volume data.
Volume ray-casting is the most popular among them. We discuss volume ray-casting
in the following section.

3.2.3 Volume ray-casting

Volume ray-casting is a volume rendering technique that renders an image from
a volume (3D data) representing physical properties of an object in the form of
a 3D grid of discrete points known as voxels. The image is rendered by pro-
jecting rays from each pixel of the image space to the volume as illustrated in
Figure 3.1a. There are mainly two types of volume ray-casting: pre-classification
volume ray-casting and post-classification volume ray-casting. The pre-classification
volume ray-casting [12] incurs less computation cost than post-classification volume
ray-casting. Therefore, pre-classification volume ray-casting is typically used in prac-
tice [2,13]. Pre-classification volume ray-casting, which is considered in this chapter,
is executed in a pipeline of independent rendering components: gradient and nor-
mal estimation, classification, shading, ray-projection, sampling, interpolation, and
composition as shown in Figure 3.1b. Table 3.1 summarizes operations performed by
different rendering components and whether these operations can be performed in
encrypted domain using Paillier cryptosystem.
 Preserving privacy in pre-classification volume ray-casting 49

Ray Projection
mal Estimation

Classification
Gradient/Nor

Interpolation

Composition
Sampling
Shading
Eye
Projected
Rays Image Space Volume Pre-Ray-Projection Post-Ray-Projection
(a) (b)

Figure 3.1 Pre-classification volume ray-casting: (a) a general overview and (b)
the rendering pipeline

Table 3.1 Rendering components of pre-classification volume ray-casting,

mathematical operations of rendering components, and their
suitability for being performed in encrypted domain using Paillier
cryptosystem

Component Operations Can performed in

encrypted domain?

Gradient estimation -, *k (scalar multiplication) Yes

√
Normal estimation +, *, No
Classification Table lookup No
Shading +, *, , … No
Ray projection None Yes
Sampling Random selection Yes
Interpolation +, *k Yes
Composition +, * No

We call the rendering operations before and after ray-project as a pre-ray-

projection and a post-ray-projection, respectively. In this work, we made the following
observations about rendering components.
● The pre-ray-projection rendering operations can be preprocessed. These oper-
ations produce colors and opacities, which are used by the post-ray-projection
rendering. Since the post-ray-projection rendering operations are performed
dynamically (after sampling, interpolation, and classification), they do not require
physical properties of the object and the exact pixel positions of the image space.
● Interpolation finds the color Cs and opacity As of a sample point s along a projected
ray from the colors and opacities of eight neighboring voxels of the sample point.
Mathematically, interpolation of color values can be defined as:

Cs = Cv Iv (3.1)
v∈N (s)

where N (s) is the set of eight neighboring voxels of s, Cv is the color value, and
0 ≤ Iv ≤ 1 is the interpolating factor of the voxel v ∈ N (s). Likewise, we can
50 Data security in cloud computing

interpolate opacities As . Therefore, for a constant Iv , this operation requires only

additions and scalar multiplications.
● Composition finds the color C and opacity A along a projected ray from the colors
and opacities of c sample points {s1 , s2 , . . . , sc }. Mathematically, composition can
be defined as:
c
C= Csi Oi (3.2)
i=1

and

c
A= Oi (3.3)
i=1

where Oi = Asi cj=i+1 (1 − Asj ) and As is the opacity of s. Therefore, for a
constant Oi , this operation also requires only additions and scalar multiplications.
● After interpolation, the position and direction of a projected ray, which can dis-
close the coordinate of the pixel that casted it, are not required; rather, a ray
must be distinguished from other rays as sample points along this ray need to be
identified during the color/opacity composition.

3.3 System model

In this work, we consider a distributed cloud-based rendering system, where a cloud
server stores and renders volumes on behalf of a volume data outsourcer. Figure 3.2
presents a real-world medical imaging scenario of 3DCrypt. In our system model, we
assume the following entities.
● Volume Outsourcer: This entity outsources the storage and rendering of volumes
to a third-party cloud provider. It could be an individual or part of an organization.
In the latter case, users can act as Volume Outsourcers. Typically, this entity
owns the volume. The Volume Outsourcer can store new volumes on a cloud

Private Cloud Server

Public Cloud Server

Image User
Volume Outsourcer

Volume Capturing Hospital Image Receiving Hospital

Figure 3.2 Cloud-based rendering of medical data (taken from [8])

 Preserving privacy in pre-classification volume ray-casting 51

server, delete/modify existing ones, and manage access control policies (such
as read/write access rights). In our scenario, the Volume Outsourcer is part of a
volume capturing hospital.
● Public Cloud Server: A Public Cloud Server is part of the infrastructure provided
by a cloud service provider, such as Amazon S3,1 for storing and rendering of
volumes. It stores (encrypted) volumes and access policies used to regulate access
to the volume and the rendered image. It performs most of the rendering on stored
volumes and produces the partially rendered data.
● Private Cloud Server: The Private Cloud Server sits between the Public Cloud
Server and the rendering requester. It can be part of the infrastructure, either
provided by a private cloud service provider or maintained by an organization as
a proxy server. The Private Cloud Server receives partially rendered data from
the Public Cloud Server and performs remaining rendering tasks on the volume.
It then sends the rendered image to the rendering requester. Note that the Pri-
vate Cloud Server does not store data, and it only performs minimal rendering
operations on partially rendered data received from the Public Cloud Server.
● Image User: This entity is authorized by the Volume Outsourcer to render a
volume stored in the Public Cloud Server. In a multiuser setting, an Image User
can (i) render an image (in encrypted domain) that will be accessible by Image
Users (including herself) or (ii) access images rendered by other Image Users. In
both cases, Image Users do not need to share any keying material.
● Key Management Authority (KMA): The KMA generates and revokes keys to
entities involved in the system. For each user (be a Volume Outsourcer or Image
User), it generates a key pair containing the user-side key and the server-side key.
The server-side key is securely transmitted to the Public Cloud Server, whereas
the user-side key is sent either to the user or to the Private Cloud Server depending
on whether the user is a Volume Outsourcer or Image User. Whenever required
(say, for example, in key lost or stolen cases), the KMA revokes the keys from
the system with the support of the Public Cloud Server.
Threat Model: We assume that the KMA is a fully trusted entity under the
control of the Volume Outsourcer’s organization. Typically, the KMA can be directly
controlled by the Volume Outsourcer. Since the KMA deals with a small amount of
data, it can be easily managed and secured. We also assume that the KMA securely
communicates the key sets to the Public Cloud Server and the Image User. This can
be achieved by establishing a secure channel. Except for managing keys, the KMA
is not involved in any operations. Therefore, it can be kept offline most of the times.
This also minimizes the chances of being compromised by an external attack.
We consider an honest-but-curious Public Cloud Server. That is, the Public Cloud
Server is trusted to honestly perform rendering operations as requested by the Image
User. However, it is not trusted to guarantee data confidentiality. The adversary can
be either an outsider or even an insider, such as unfaithful employees. Furthermore,

1
https://aws.amazon.com/s3/
52 Data security in cloud computing

mal Estimation

Ray Projection
Classification
Gradient/Nor

Interpolation

Composition
Sampling
Shading
Volume Outsourcer Image Public Cloud Private Cloud
User Server Server

Figure 3.3 Distribution of rendering pipeline (taken from [8])

we assume that there are mechanisms to deal with data integrity and availability of
the Public Cloud Server.
In 3DCrypt, the Private Cloud Server is an honest-and-semi-trusted entity. The
Private Cloud Server is also expected to honestly perform its part of rendering oper-
ations. The Private Cloud Server is semi-trusted in the sense that it cannot analyze
more than what can perceptually be learnt from the plaintext volume. We assume that
the Private Cloud Server is in conflict of interest with the Public Cloud Server. That
is, both cloud servers should not collude.

3.4 Proposed approach

In this section, we present the architecture and an overview of the workflow of
3DCrypt.
Figure 3.3 provides an overview of the pre-classification volume rendering
pipeline and illustrates how we distribute the rendering pipeline among different com-
ponents of 3DCrypt. The Volume Outsourcer performs pre-ray-projection rendering
operations: gradient/normal estimation, classification, and shading as these one-time
operations can be preprocessed. The output of these operations is encrypted using Pail-
lier cryptosystem, and the encrypted volume is sent to the Public Cloud Server. The
Image User projects rays to the encrypted volume stored on the Public Cloud Server.
The Public Cloud Server performs part of the post-ray-projection rendering opera-
tions: sampling and interpolation on encrypted colors and opacities. Then, the Public
Cloud Server sends interpolated colors and opacities to the Private Cloud Server. The
Public Cloud Server, however, does not share information about voxel coordinates
and projected rays with the Private Cloud Server. The Private Cloud Server decrypts
interpolated opacities and performs remaining post-ray-projection rendering opera-
tions: color and opacity composition using plaintext opacities and encrypted colors.
Then, the Private Cloud Server sends the encrypted composite colors and plaintext
composite opacities to the Image User. Finally, the Image User decrypts composite
colors and creates the plaintext rendered image using plaintext colors and opacities.
Figure 3.4 illustrates the architecture of 3DCrypt. In this system, the Volume
Outsourcer is responsible for storing a volume and defining access policies for the
 Preserving privacy in pre-classification volume ray-casting 53

Public Cloud Server

Volume
Untrusted outsourced
Volume Store Renderer
(7) (6) ring
e r
environment

Policy Store nd ete

Encrypted
volume Po (4)
lic Encrypted volume Re ram (8)
(iii.a) pa

Policy
y (5)
(iii.b)
Access Access response User First-Stage
Manager Authorization Decryption
Second-Stage Access request
Policy Storage (3) Access Request Processor
Encryption
Key Store Anonymized
Store Keeper (9)
User Identity

Anonymized user identity

Encrypted volume

Rendering parameter
Key
Trusted environment

Access policy

Second-Stage
Management Private Opacity Decryption
(ii) Authority Cloud
(KMA) (2) Server Rendering Finisher

Opacity Disclosed
(10)
Rendered Image
First-Stage Store
Encryption Requester Second-Stage
Access Requester
Color Decryption
Access
(i) policy Rendering Rendered
Volume (1) request (11) image
Volume Outsourcer Image User

Figure 3.4 The architecture of 3DCrypt, a cloud-based secure volume storage and
rendering system (taken from [8])

volume. To achieve this, the Volume Outsourcer interacts with the client module Store
Requester. The Volume Outsourcer provides plaintext volume and access policies
(Step i). The Store Requester performs the first-stage encryption on the input volume
using the user-side key and then sends the encrypted volume along with associated
access policies to the Store Keeper module of the Public Cloud Server (Step ii). On the
Public Cloud Server-end, the Store Keeper performs the second stage of encryption
using the server-side key corresponding to the user and stores the encrypted volume
in a Volume Store (Step iii.a). The Store Keeper also stores access policies of the
volume in the Policy Store (Step iii.b).
Once an Image User expects the Public Cloud Server to render a volume, his
or her client module Access Requester receives his or her rendering request in the
form of projected rays (Step 1). The module Access Requester, in turn, forwards the
request to the Access Request Processor module of the Public Cloud Server (Step 2).
In the request, the Access Requester sends rendering parameters (such as direction of
projected rays) and user credentials (which can be anonymized) to the Access Request
Processor. The Access Request Processor first performs the user authorization check
to find out if the user has authorization to perform requested operations. For this
purpose, the Access Manager is requested for checking access policies (Step 3).
The Access Manager fetches access policies from the Policy Store (Step 4). Next,
it matches access policies against the access request. Then, the access response is
sent back to the Access Request Processor (Step 5). If the user is authorized to
54 Data security in cloud computing

perform the requested operation, the Volume Renderer is invoked with rendering
parameters (Step 6). The requested volume is retrieved from the Volume Store (Step
7). Then, most of the rendering tasks, which do not require multiplication of opacities,
are performed in the encrypted manner and the partially rendered data is sent to
the Access Request Processor (Step 8). The Access Request Processor performs the
first round of decryption on the rendered data, hides voxel positions (e.g.permuting
coordinates of the voxels), and sends the data, protected pixel positions and the user
identity to the Private Cloud Server (Step 9). The Private Cloud Server performs the
second round of decryption and obtains partially rendered opacities in plaintext. The
plaintext opacities and encrypted colors are sent to the Rendering Finisher module,
which performs rest of rendering tasks involving multiplication of opacities. Since
the opacities are in plaintext, the multiplication of opacities with colors is reduced
to a scalar multiplication. The Private Cloud Server then sends the opacity disclosed
(but shape-protected as voxel positions are unknown) and color encrypted rendered
image to the Access Requester (Step 10). The Access Requester decrypts the colors
and shows the rendered image to the Image User (Step 11).

3.5 Solution details

3DCrypt is based on a modified Pailler cryptosystem that supports re-encryption

[14–16] and is homomorphic to additions and scalar multiplications. Therefore, using
this cryptosystem, we can encrypt a volume, for which rendering has been adjusted
such that the post-ray-projection rendering tasks including interpolation and compo-
sition can be performed by a combination of additions and scalar multiplications. In
order to provide the multiuser support, we extend the modified Paillier cryptosys-
tem [14–16] such that each user has his or her own key to encrypt or decrypt the
images. In 3DCrypt, adding a new user or removing an existing one does not require
re-encryption of existing images stored in the cloud.
The main goal of 3DCrypt is to leverage resources of the Public Cloud Server as
much as possible by storing the data volume and by performing most of the rendering
tasks. To ensure confidentiality, both colors and opacities are stored in an encrypted
form. Information about projected rays, however, must be available in plaintext as
it is required in sampling and interpolation steps of the rendering operation. Since
the Paillier cryptosystem is non-homomorphic to multiplication, composition, which
multiplies opacities, cannot be computed on encrypted opacities. Thus, we employ
a private cloud that can perform composition by knowing plaintext opacities. Since
the knowledge of opacities and pixel positions can perceptually disclose shape of
the rendered image, we consider to protect voxel positions from the Private Cloud
Server. We can achieve this by permuting voxel positions to dissociate them from
projected rays.
A key difficulty in integrating the Paillier cryptosystem with volume ray-casting
is the incompatibility of floating point operations of ray-casting operations with the
modular prime operation of the Paillier cryptosystem. One way of overcoming this
issue is by converting the floating point interpolating factors and opacities to their
 Preserving privacy in pre-classification volume ray-casting 55

E(C),E(A)
Public Cloud Server Volume Renderer
E(C),E(A)
E(V')
Volume Store
E(V') Projected Rays
E(C),E(A)
Ei(Cs ) Ei(As )
1 1
Ei(Cs ) Ei(As )
2 2
E (V') KSC KSA KSA KSC
i i j j
Store Keeper Key Store Access Request Processor

E *(C), E * (A) Ej*(Cs ) Ej* (As )

1 1
KSC KSC Ej*(Cs ) Ej* (As )
i j 2 2

KSA KSA
E (V')
* i j
Private Cloud Server
KUA Rendering Finisher
j

C,A υijk Key

KUC Management Ej*(C) A
Pre-Ray- i KUC
KUA Authority j
Projection i C, A
V' V (KMA)

Volume Outsourcer Image User

Figure 3.5 Encryption and decryption processes using 3DCrypt (taken from [8])

fixed point representatives. We can achieve this by rounding-off a float by d decimal

points and multiplying 10d with the round-off number.
Figure 3.5 provides the technical overview of 3DCrypt’s rendering system. In
3DCrypt, the KMA generates the color-key-set {KSC , KUC } and the opacity-key-set
{KSA , KUA } for each user in the system (acting either as a Volume Outsourcer or as
an Image User). Each key set contains a pair of keys: the user-side key and the
server-side key. For each user i, the server-side keys of the color-key-set and the
opacity-key-set, which are KSCi and KSAi , respectively, are securely transmitted to the
Public Cloud Server. The Public Cloud Server securely stores all the server-side keys
in the Key Store, which could be accessible only to the Store Keeper and the Access
Request Processor. When the user i is the Volume Outsourcer, the user-side keys of
the color-key-set and the opacity-key-set, KUCi and KUAi , are transmitted to the user.
However, when the user i is the Image User, then the user-side key of color-key-set
and opacity-key-set, KUCi and KUAi , are sent to the user and the Private Cloud Server,
respectively.
The workflow of our secure rendering system can be divided into three major
steps: data preparation, ray-dependent rendering, and composition. We discuss each
of these steps below.

3.5.1 Data preparation

This step is performed by the Volume Outsourcer prior to projection of rays. Since this
step is independent of any rendering request (in the form of projected rays), this one-
time step can be preprocessed. In this step, the Volume Outsourcer performs two main
56 Data security in cloud computing

tasks: (i) pre-ray-projection rendering and (ii) encryption of output of the pre-ray-
projection rendering using user-side keys: KUCi and KUAi . As discussed in Section 3.2.3,
the pre-ray-projection rendering, consisting of gradient/normal estimation, classifi-
cation, and shading rendering components, maps the physical property vijk of the ijk th
data voxel to its corresponding color C and opacity A. After this step, an input volume
V can be represented as V  , where the ijk th voxel of V  contains colors and opacity
found by the physical property (typically represented as a floating point number) of
the ijk th voxel of V .
For a user i, the colors and opacities of V  are encrypted using KUCi and KUAi ,
respectively. The encryption outputs Ei∗ (C) and Ei∗ (A) are sent to the Store Keeper
as an encrypted volume Ei∗ (V  ). The Store Keeper then uses the server-side keys KSCi
and KSAi to re-encrypt Ei∗ (C) and Ei∗ (A) and stores the re-encrypted volume E(V  ) in
the Volume Store.
In the encryption process, we adopt two main optimizations to decrease the stor-
age overhead. First, we use the optimization of the modified Paillier cryptosystem.
Second, we encrypt three color components—R, G, and B—in a single big num-
ber rather than encrypting them independently. We discuss both the optimizations
below.
Optimization of the modified Paillier cryptosystem. The modified Paillier
cryptosystem, explained in Section 3.6, is represented as: E(C) = (e1 , e2 ), where
e1 = g r and e2 = g rx .(1 + Cn), where C is the plaintext color. Likewise, we encrypt
the opacity A. Note that e1 is independent of the plaintext color. By using a different
e1 for a different color (a typical case), we need 2k bits (where k is a security param-
eter) for storing e1 of each color. We propose to optimize this space requirement by
using one e1 for encrypting t colors, requiring 2k bits for storing e1 for all t col-
ors. This optimization can be achieved by using the same random number r for all t
colors.
Encrypting color components. As discussed in Section 3.2.3, the three color
components (i.e., R, G, and B) undergo the same rendering operations. Each of
them requires 8 bits in plaintext, but is represented by 2 ∗ k bits (the minimum rec-
ommended value of k is 1,024) when encrypted independently. We can reduce this
overhead by representing three color components as a single big number and encrypt-
ing this number in the place of encrypting the color components independently. This
encrypted number will then undergo rendering in the place of rendering of color com-
ponents. After decryption, we must, however, be able to recover the rendered color
components from the rendered big number. One trick to create a big number from color
components is by multiplying 103∗m∗(d+f ) (where d + f is the total rounding places
during rounding operations in rendering) to m-th color component and adding all the
multiplications.

3.5.2 Ray-dependent rendering

This step is performed by the Public Cloud Server after rays have been projected by
the Image User. In this step, the Public Cloud Server first fetches encrypted volume
E(V  ) from the Volume Store and then performs sampling and interpolation on E(V  ).
 Preserving privacy in pre-classification volume ray-casting 57

We use the same sampling technique as used by the conventional ray-casting. The
interpolation, however, is performed on the encrypted color E(C) and opacity E(A).
As discussed in Section 3.2.3, interpolation can be performed as additions and scalar
multiplications when the interpolating factor Iijk is available in plaintext. We therefore
disclose Iijk to the Public Cloud Server. Since the floating point Iijk cannot be used

with encrypted numbers, the Public Cloud Server converts Iijk to an integer Iijk by first
d
rounding-off Iijk to d decimal places and then multiplying 10 to the round-off value.
3DCrypt is such that it allows the Public Cloud Server to run additions and scalar
multiplications over encrypted numbers, as shown in (3.4) and (3.5), respectively.
E(C1 ) ∗ E(C2 ) = E(C1 + C2 ) (3.4)
and
I 
E(C) ijk = E(Iijk ∗ C) (3.5)
Likewise, we can compute opacity in an encrypted manner. The interpolated color
E(Cs ) and opacity E(As ) for each sample point s are first-stage-decrypted using the
Image User j’s server-side keys KSCj and KSAj , respectively. The first-stage-decrypted
color Ej∗ (Cs ) and opacity Ej∗ (As ) are then sent to the Private Cloud Server along with
the proxy ray to which the sampling point s is associated.

3.5.3 Composition
In this step, the Private Cloud Server accumulates the colors and opacities of all the
sampling points along a proxy voxel position. Since this step involves multiplica-
tion of opacities (which are non-homomorphic to Paillier Cryptosystem), the Private
Cloud Server performs the second round of decryption on Ej∗ (As ) using the user j’s
user-side key for opacity, KUAj . The multiplied opacities Os , which will be multiplied
with encrypted color, however, is a floating point number. As discussed above, we can
convert this float to an integer by first rounding-off the float by f places and then multi-
plying 10f with the rounded-off value. Then, we can perform encrypted domain color
composition using (3.4) and (3.5). Note that since the available interpolated colors are
in encrypted form, the composited color Ej∗ (C) also remains encrypted. Furthermore,
in absence of voxel positions of the image space, the composited plaintext opacity A
does not reveal shape of the rendered image.
The plaintext rendered opacity A and encrypted rendered color Ej∗ (C) are sent
to the Image User, who decrypts Ej∗ (C) using KUCj and views the plaintext rendered
image.

3.6 Construction details

In this section, we describe the algorithms used in our proposed scheme. We instantiate
two instances of the scheme: one for the color and other for the opacity.
● Init(1k ). The KMA runs the initialization algorithm to generate public parameters
Params and a master secret key set MSK. It takes as input a security parameter
58 Data security in cloud computing

k and generates two prime numbers p and q of bit-length k. It computes n = pq.

The secret key is x ∈ [1, n2 /2]. The g is of order: φ(n)2
= φ(p)φ(q)
2
= (p−1)(q−1)
2
and
∗
can be easily found by choosing a random a ∈ Zn2 and computing g = −a2n . It
returns Params = (n, g) and MSK = x. KS represents the Key Store, initialised
as KS ← φ.
● KeyGen(MSK, i). The KMA runs the key generation algorithm to generate keying
material for users in the system. For each user i, this algorithm generates two key
sets KUi and KSi by choosing a random xi1 from [1, n2 /2]. Then it calculates
xi2 = x − xi1 and transmits KUi = xi1 and KSi = (i, xi2 ) securely to user i and to
the server, respectively. The server adds KSi to the Key Store as follows: KS ←
KS ∪ KSi .
● ClientEnc(D, KUi ). A user i runs the data encryption algorithm to encrypt the data
D using his or her key KUi . To encrypt the data D ∈ Zn , the user client chooses a
random r ∈ [1, n/4]. It computes Ei∗ (D) = (ê1 , ê2 ), where

ê1 = g r mod n2 and

ê2 = ê1xi1 .(1 + Dn) mod n2
= g rxi1 .(1 + Dn) mod n2
● ServerReEnc(Ei∗ (D), KSi ). The server re-encrypts the user encrypted data
Ei∗ (D) = (ê1 , ê2 ). It retrieves the key KSi corresponding to the user i and computes
the re-encrypted ciphertext E(D) = (e1 , e2 ), where

e1 = ê1 = g r mod n2 and

e2 = ê1xi2 .ê2 = g rx .(1 + Dn). mod n2
● ServerSum(E(D1 ), E(D2 )). Given two encrypted values E(D1 ) = (e11 , e12 )
(where e11 = g r1 and e12 = g r1 x .(1 + D1 n)) and E(D2 ) = (e21 , e22 ) (where e21 =
g r2 and e22 = g r2 x .(1 + D2 n)), the server calculates the encrypted sum E(D1 +
D2 ) = (e1 , e2 ), where

e1 = e11 .e21 = g r1 +r2 mod n2 and

e2 = e12 .e22 mod n2
= g (r1 +r2 )x .(1 + (D1 + D2 )n) mod n2
● ServerScalMul(c, E(D)). Given a constant scalar factor c and an encrypted value
E(D) = (e1 , e2 ) where e1 = g r and e2 = g rx .(1 + Dn), the server calculates the
encrypted scalar multiplication E(c.D) = (e1∗ , e2∗ ), where

e1∗ = e1c = g rc mod n2 and

e2∗ = e2c = g rcx .(1 + cDn) mod n2
● ServerPreDec(E(D), KSj ). The server runs this algorithm to partially decrypt
the encrypted data for the user j. It takes as input the encrypted value E(D) =
(e1 , e2 ), where e1 = g r and e2 = g rx .(1 + Dn). The server retrieves the key KSj
 Preserving privacy in pre-classification volume ray-casting 59

corresponding to the user j and computes the first-stage-decrypted data Ej∗ (D) =
(ê1 , ê2 ), where

ê1 = e1 = g r mod n2 and

−xj2
ê2 = e1 .e2 mod n2
= g rxj1 .(1 + Dn) mod n2
● UserDec(Ej∗ (D), KUj ). The user runs this algorithm to decrypt the data. It takes
as input the first-stage-decrypted data Ej∗ (D) = (ê1 , ê2 ) where ê1 = g r and ê2 =
g rxj1 .(1 + Dn)), and his or her key KUj , and retrieves the data by computing: D =
−x
L(ê2 .ê1 j1 ) = L(1 + Dn), where L(u) = u−1 n
for all u ∈ {u < n2 |u = 1 mod n}.
● Revoke(i). The server runs this algorithm to revoke user i access to the data. Given
the user i, the server removes KSi from the Key Store as follows: KS ← KS \KSi .

3.7 Security analysis

In this section, we evaluate security of the scheme used in this chapter. In general, a
scheme is considered secure if no adversary can break the scheme with probability
significantly greater than random guessing. The adversary’s advantage in breaking
the scheme should be a negligible function (defined below) of the security parameter.

Definition 3.1 (Negligible Function). A function f is negligible if for each polynomial

p(.), there exists N such that for all integers n > N it holds that:
1
f (n) <
p(n)
We consider a realistic adversary that is computationally bounded and shows
that our scheme is secure against such an adversary. We model the adversary as a
randomized algorithm that runs in polynomial time and show that the success proba-
bility of any such adversary is negligible. An algorithm that is randomized and runs
in polynomial time is called a Probabilistic Polynomial Time (PPT) algorithm.
The scheme relies on the existence of a pseudorandom function f . Intuitively,
the output a pseudorandom function cannot be distinguished by a realistic adversary
from that of a truly random function. Formally, a pseudorandom function is defined
as:

Definition 3.2 (Pseudorandom Function). A function f : {0, 1}∗ × {0, 1}∗ → {0, 1}∗
is pseudorandom if for all PPT adversaries A , there exists a negligible function negl
such that:

|Pr[A fs (·) = 1] − Pr[A F(·) = 1]| < negl(n)

where s → {0, 1}n is chosen uniformly randomly and F is a function chosen uniformly
randomly from the set of function mapping n-bit string to n-bit string.
60 Data security in cloud computing

Our proof relies on the assumption that the Decisional Diffie-Hellman (DDH)
is hard in a group G, i.e., it is hard for an adversary to distinguish between group
elements g αβ and g γ given g α and g β .
Definition 3.3 (DDH Assumption). The DDH problem is hard regarding a group g
if for all PPT adversaries A , there exists a negligible function negl such that:

|Pr[A (G, n, g, g α , g β , g αβ ) = 1]−

Pr[A (G, n, g, g α , g β , g γ ) = 1]| < negl(k)

where g ← G is a group of order φ(n)/2 (where n = pq), and α, β, γ ∈ Zn are

uniformly randomly chosen.

Theorem 3.1. If the DDH problem is hard relative to G, then the proposed Paillier-
based proxy encryption scheme (let us call it PPE) is IND-CPA secure against the
server S, i.e., for all PPT adversaries A there exists a negligible function negl such
that:

⎡  ⎤
 (Params, MSK) ← Init(1k )

⎢  (KUi , KSi ) ← KeyGen(MSK, i) ⎥
⎢  ⎥
⎢  d0 , d1 ← A ClientEnc(·,KUi ) (KSi ) ⎥
A ⎢  
SuccPPE,S (k) = Pr ⎢b = b  ⎥
b←
R
− {0, 1} ⎥ (3.6)
⎢  ⎥
⎣  E ∗ (d ) = ClientEnc(d , K ) ⎦
 i b b U
 b ← A ClientEnc(·,KUi ) (E ∗ (d ), K )
i

i b Si
< 1
2
+ negl(k)

Proof. Let us consider the following PPT adversary A  who attempts to solve the
DDH problem using A as a subroutine. Note that for the proof technique, we take
inspiration from the one presented in [17]. Recall that A  is given G, n, g, g1 , g2 , g3 as
input, where g1 = g α , g2 = g β and g3 is either g αβ or g γ for some uniformly chosen
random α, β, γ ∈ Zn . A  does for the following:
● A  sends n, g to A as the public parameters. Next, it randomly chooses xi2 ∈ Zn
for the user i and computes g xi1 = g1 .g −xi2 . It then sends (i, xi2 ) to A and keeps
all (i, xi2 , g xi1 ).
● Whenever A requires oracle access to ClientEnc(.), it passes the data d to A  .
A  randomly chooses r ∈ Zn and returns (g r , g rxi1 .(1 + dn)).
● At some point, A outputs d0 and d1 . A  randomly chooses a bit b and sends
(g2 , g2−xi2 g3 .(1 + db n)) to A .
● A outputs b . If b = b , A  outputs 1 and 0 otherwise.
We can distinguish two cases:
Case 1. If g3 = g γ , we know that g γ is a random group element of G because γ
is chosen at random. g2−xi2 g3 .(1 + db n)) is also a random element of G and gives
no information about db . That is, the distribution of g2−xi2 g3 .(1 + db n)) is always
uniform, regardless of the value of db . Further, g2 does not leak information about db .
 Preserving privacy in pre-classification volume ray-casting 61

So, the adversary A must distinguish d0 and d1 without additional information. The
probability that A can successfully output b is exactly 12 , when b is chosen uniformly
randomly. A  outputs 1 if and only if A outputs b = b. Thus, we have:
Pr[A  (G, n, g, g α , g β , g γ ) = 1] = 1
2

Case 2. If g3 = g αβ , because
g2 = g β and
g2−xi2 g3 .(1 + db n) = g −βxi2 g αβ .(1 + db n)
= g β(α−xi2 ) .(1 + db n)
= g βxi1 .(1 + db n)
Thus, (g2 , g2−xi2 g3 .(1 + db n)) is a proper ciphertext encrypted under PPE. So, we
have:

A
Pr[A  (G, n, g, g α , g β , g α,β ) = 1] = SuccPPE,S (k)

If the DDH problem is hard relative to G, then the following holds:

|Pr[A  (G, n, g, g α , g β , g αβ ) = 1] − Pr[A  (G, n, g, g α , g β , g γ ) = 1]| < negl(k)
Pr[A  (G, n, g, g α , g β , g αβ ) = 1] < 12 + negl(k)
So, we have:
A 1
SuccPPE,S (k) < + negl(k)
2
Informally, the theorem says that without knowing the user side keys, the proxy
cannot distinguish the ciphertext in a chosen plaintext attack.

3.8 Implementation and experiment

We implemented the secure ray-casting by integrating the modified Paillier cryptosys-
tem to the volume ray-casting module of the open-source 3D visualization software
VTK6.3.0. We run the implemented 3DCrypt on a PC powered by Intel i5-4670 3.40
GHz processor and 8 GB of RAM, running Ubuntu 15.04. All the components of
3DCrypt, i.e., the Volume Outsourcer, the Public Cloud Server, the Private Cloud
Server, the Image User, and the KMA were simulated. Note that VTK is typically
shipped with post-classification volume ray-casting. We modified VTK to provide
pre-classification volume ray-casting. For dealing with big number cryptographic
primitive operations, we integrated the MIRACL cryptographic library with VTK.
In our implementation, we chose a 1,024-bit key size. We round-off the floating
point numbers used in rendering operations by machine precision to avoid round-off
errors. For the modified Paillier encryption, we choose one random number r for all
voxels of a volume, requiring one e1 = g r (first cipher component) for all voxels.
62 Data security in cloud computing

(a) (b) (c)

Figure 3.6 Secure rendering for the Head image. Part figures (a)–(c) illustrate the
rendered image available to the Image User, the Public Cloud Server,
and the Private Cloud Server, respectively (taken from [8])

Results. Figure 3.6 illustrates how 3DCrypt provides perceptual security in the
cloud. An image available to the Public Cloud Server is all black since the Public
Cloud Server does not know the color and opacity of the pixels. The image available
to the Private Cloud Server, however, contains opacity information, which can disclose
shape of the image as voxel positions are disclosed to the Private Cloud Server.
Performance Analysis. In 3DCrypt, processing by the Volume Outsourcer and
the encryption by the Public Cloud Server are one-time operations, which could be
performed offline. The overheads of these operations, however, are directly propor-
tional to the volume size. The overhead for a volume is equal to the product of a
voxel’s overhead with the total number of voxels in the volume (i.e., the dimension of
the volume). In our implementation, we need approximately 4,064 bits more space to
store the encrypted color and the opacity of a voxel (as two encryptions of 1,024 bits
key size are required for encrypting 32 bits RGBA values). Thus, we require approx-
imately 8.6 GB of space to store a 256 × 256 × 256 volume in encrypted domain
(size of this volume in plaintext is approximately 67 MB). Similarly, for encrypt-
ing color and opacity of a voxel, the Volume Outsourcer requires approximately 540
ms. The Public Cloud Server requires approximately 294 ms more computation with
respect to the conventional plaintext domain pre-classification volume ray-casting
implemented on the same machine. Thus, the Volume Outsourcer and the Public
Cloud Server require approximately 2.52 and 1.37 h, respectively, for encrypting the
256 × 256 × 256 volume.
The rendering by the cloud servers and the decryption by the Image User are
performed at runtime, according to the ray projected by the Image User. The over-
head of performing these operations affects visualization latency, which is discussed
below.
In 3DCrypt, the overhead of transferring and performing the last round rendering
operations in the Private Cloud Server is equal to the product of the number of sample
points with the overhead of a sample point. The total number of sample points is
equal to the sum of the sample points along all the projected rays and the number of
sample points along a ray is implementation dependent. For rendering and decrypting
(the first round) the color and opacity of a sample point, the Public Cloud Server
requires approximately 290 ms of extra computation. For rendering and decrypting
 Preserving privacy in pre-classification volume ray-casting 63

(the second round) opacity of a sample point, the Private Cloud Server requires
approximately 265 ms of extra computation (with respect to the conventional plaintext
domain pre-classification volume ray-casting).
In our implementation, for rendering and decrypting the 256 × 256 × 256
volume data for a 256 × 256 image project space, the Public Cloud Server and the
Private Cloud Server require approximately 16.5 and 15.2 extra minutes, respectively.
Note that for this data and image space, the data overhead at the Private Cloud Server
is approximately 1.75 GB.
The overhead of transferring and decrypting the color-encrypted rendered image
to the Image User is equal to the product of the number of pixels in the image space
(which is equal to the number of projected rays) with the overhead for a single pixel.
In 3DCrypt, the Private Cloud Server must send approximately 2,024 bits more data
per pixel to the Image User. Therefore, for rendering a 256 × 256 image, the Image
User must download 66.3 MB of more data than the conventional plaintext domain
rendering. In addition, the Image User needs approximately 408 ms of computation to
decrypt and recover rendered color of a pixel. Therefore, before viewing the 256 × 256
image, the Image User must work approximately 27 extra seconds.

3.9 Conclusions
Cloud-based volume rendering presents the data confidentiality issue that can lead to
privacy loss. In this chapter, we addressed this issue by encrypting the volume using
the modified Paillier cryptosystem such that a pre-classification volume ray-casting
can be performed at the cloud server in the encrypted domain. Our proposal, 3DCrypt,
provides several improvements over state-of-the-art techniques. First, we are able to
hide both color and shape of the rendering object from a cloud server. Second, we
provide better security to collusion attack than the state-of-the-art Shamir’s secret
sharing-based scheme. Third, users do not need to share keys for rendering volume
stored in the cloud (therefore, maintenance of per-volume keys is not required).
To make 3DCrypt more practical, our future work can focus on decreasing per-
formance overheads at both the cloud and the user ends. Furthermore, it would also be
interesting to investigate whether we can extend 3DCrypt for the encrypted domain
post-classification volume ray-casting.

References
[1] E. Cuervo, A. Wolman, L. P. C. et al., “Kahawai: High-quality mobile gaming
using GPU offload,” in Proceedings of the 13th Annual International Confer-
ence on Mobile Systems, Applications, and Services, Florence, Italy, 2015,
pp. 121–135.
[2] KDDI Inc., “Medical real-time 3d imaging solution,” Online Report, 2012,
http://www.kddia.com/en/sites/default/files/file/KDDI_America_Newsletter_
August_2012.pdf.
64 Data security in cloud computing

[3] Intel Inc., “Experimental cloud-based ray tracing using intel mic architecture
for highly parallel visual processing,” Online Report, 2011, https://software.
intel.com/sites/default/files/m/d/4/1/d/8/Cloud-based_Ray_Tracing_0211.pdf.
[4] M. Baharon, Q. Shi, D. Llewellyn-Jones, and M. Merabti, “Secure render-
ing process in cloud computing,” in Eleventh Annual Conference on Privacy,
Security and Trust, Tarragona, Spain, 2013, pp. 82–87.
[5] M. Mohanty, M. R. Asghar, and G. Russello, “2DCrypt: Image scaling and
cropping in encrypted domains,” IEEE Transactions on Information Forensics
and Security, vol. 11, no. 11, pp. 2542–2555, 2016.
[6] M. Mohanty, P. K. Atrey, and W. T. Ooi, “Secure cloud-based medical data
visualization,” in Proceedings of the 20th ACM International Conference on
Multimedia, Nara, Japan, 2012, pp. 1105–1108.
[7] J.-K. Chou and C.-K. Yang, “Obfuscated volume rendering,” The Visual
Computer, vol. 32, no. 12, pp. 1593–1604, Dec. 2016.
[8] M. Mohanty, M. R. Asghar, and G. Russello, “3DCrypt: Privacy-preserving
pre-classification volume ray-casting of 3D images in the cloud,” in Inter-
national Conference on Security and Cryptography (SECRYPT), Lisbon,
Portugal, 2016.
[9] M. Mohanty, W. T. Ooi, and P. K. Atrey, “Secure cloud-based volume
ray-casting,” in Proceedings of the 5th IEEE Conference on Cloud Computing
Technology and Science, Bristol, UK, 2013.
[10] D. Koller, M. Turitzin, M. Levoy et al., “Protected interactive 3D graphics
via remote rendering,” in ACM SIGGRAPH, Los Angeles, USA: ACM, 2004,
pp. 695–703.
[11] A. Dasgupta and R. Kosara, “Adaptive privacy-preserving visualization
using parallel coordinates,” Visualization and Computer Graphics, IEEE
Transactions on, vol. 17, no. 12, pp. 2241–2248, 2011.
[12] M. Levoy, “Display of surfaces from volume data,” IEEE Computer Graphics
and Applications, vol. 8, pp. 29–37, 1988.
[13] Sinha System, “Cloud based medical image management and visualiza-
tion platform,” Online Report, 2012, http://www.shina-sys.com/assets/
brochures/3Di.pdf.
[14] E. Bresson, D. Catalano, and D. Pointcheval, “A simple public-key cryptosys-
tem with a double trapdoor decryption mechanism and its applications,” in
Advances in Cryptology—ASIACRYPT 2003, ser. Lecture Notes in Computer
Science. Springer Berlin Heidelberg, 2003, vol. 2894, pp. 37–54.
[15] G. Ateniese, K. Fu, M. Green, and S. Hohenberger, “Improved proxy
re-encryption schemes with applications to secure distributed storage,” ACM
Transactions on Information and System Security, vol. 9, pp. 1–30, February
2006.
[16] E. Ayday, J. L. Raisaro, J.-P. Hubaux, and J. Rougemont, “Protecting and
evaluating genomic privacy in medical tests and personalized medicine,” in
Proceedings of the 12th ACM Workshop on Privacy in the Electronic Society,
Berlin, Germany, 2013, pp. 95–106.
[17] C. Dong, G. Russello, and N. Dulay, “Shared and searchable encrypted data
for untrusted servers,” Journal of Computer Security, vol. 19, pp. 367–397,
August 2011.
 Chapter 4
Multiprocessor system-on-chip for processing
data in cloud computing
Arnab Kumar Biswas1 , S. K. Nandy2 , and
Ranjani Narayan3

Abstract
Cloud computing enables cloud customers to obtain shared processing resources and
data on demand. Cloud providers configure computing resources to provide different
services to users and enterprises. These cloud providers satisfy the need for high-
performance computing by bringing more PEs inside a chip (known as Multiprocessor
System-on-Chip (MPSoC)) instead of increasing operating frequency. An MPSoC
usually employs Network-on-Chip (NoC) as the scalable on-chip communication
medium. An MPSoC can contain multiple Trusted Execution Environments (TEEs)
and Rich Execution Environments (REEs). Security critical applications run in TEEs
and normal applications run in REEs. Due to sharing of resources (for example, NoC)
in cloud computing, applications running in two TEEs may need to communicate over
an REE that is running applications of a malicious user (attacker). This scenario can
cause unauthorized access attack if the attacker launches router attack inside the NoC.
Apart from this attack, an attacker can also launch misrouting attack using router attack
causing various types of ill effects. To deal with these security concerns, we discuss
in detail different hardware-based security mechanisms. These mechanisms mainly
employ monitoring to detect a router attack and possibly a malicious router location.
The hardware-based mechanisms can provide much-needed protection to users’ data
in a cloud computing MPSoC platform. Apart from the threat model with practical
examples, detailed hardware description of each security mechanism is given in this
chapter for easy understanding of the readers.

4.1 Introduction

Cloud computing enables ubiquitous and on-demand network access to configurable

computing resources. Cloud computing also enables cloud providers to provide

1
Hardware and Embedded Systems Lab, School of Computer Science and Engineering, Nanyang
Technological University, Singapore
2
Indian Institute of Science, Bengaluru, India
3
Morphing Machines, Bengaluru, India
66 Data security in cloud computing

services that allow collaboration, agility, scalability, and availability. An attacker

can launch attacks using a vulnerability in the communication link between a user
and the cloud platform, a vulnerability in the operating system (OS) or any other
software elements running in the cloud or a vulnerability in the hardware cloud plat-
form itself. In this chapter, we consider the attacks where an attacker targets the
hardware cloud platform and also discuss different security mechanisms to ensure
security of the information flow within a cloud platform. Cloud providers use high-
performance computing resources like MPSoC that can be shared between different
users simultaneously. Different processing elements (PEs) in an MPSoC are usually
interconnected by a scalable medium like an NoC. An NoC mainly consists of routers
and links. Routers route packets through the NoC links following a routing algorithm.
For a configurable router, routing algorithm can be configured to support application
requirements. The router configuration mechanism is usually not secure, enabling an
attacker to launch router attack by malicious configurations. Until now, most proposed
solutions in literature tried to secure the PEs (including memory) and not the commu-
nication architecture itself inside an MPSoC. If we do not protect the interconnection
network similar to the PEs, the whole system can easily be made vulnerable.
Depending on how a routing path is selected inside a router, routing can be
classified as deterministic (static) or adaptive [1,2]. In xpipes [3] and in Æthereal NoC
[4], authors have used deterministic routing; in [5–7], authors have proposed NoC
architectures using adaptive routing algorithm; and in [8–10], authors have proposed
reconfigurable NoC architectures. None of these systems have considered the security
vulnerability in NoC and hence router attacks are possible in these systems.
Intel introduced a 48-core Single Chip Cloud (SCC) computer in 2010 as an
experimental chip for cloud computing [11] but as per our knowledge only 72-core
processor TILE-Gx72 is currently available from Mellanox technologies for cloud
applications [12]. Currently, Zynq UltraScale+ MPSoCs from XILINX are also avail-
able to be used in data centers for cloud applications [13]. The MPSoC consists of
various intellectual property (IP) modules like block RAM and programmable logic
(i.e., field programmable gate array (FPGA) for which XILINX is commonly known)
and also multi-core application processing unit, real-time processing unit, and graph-
ics processing unit (GPU) from ARM. Apart from XILINX MPSoCs, NVIDIA Tesla
GPUs are used in data centers for cloud computing [14]. Regarding the programming
model, MapReduce is commonly used in data centers, which allows programmers to
write functional-style code which is then scheduled and parallelized automatically in
a distributed system. MapReduce programming model was first proposed and imple-
mented by Google [15], but currently it is being developed by various companies
and research institutions. As a result, more capable MapReduce programming model
implementations are currently available.
In literature, MapReduce is implemented in GPU chip [16], in multiprocessor
chip [17], and also in a heterogeneous system with both CPU and GPU in a chip
[18]. MapReduce is also implemented in a cloud platform where each computing
node itself is a GPU [19,20]. In this chapter, we assume a cloud platform where
each node is an MPSoC and MapReduce is used in each node and across all the
nodes (i.e., the whole distributed system). We mainly consider the security aspects
of such computing system. Currently, many vendors provide Security-as-a-Service
 Multiprocessor system-on-chip for processing data in cloud computing 67

(SecaaS) to cloud customers taking many different forms. The cloud security alliance
(formed by many of these vendors) provides guidelines for implementing SecaaS
offerings [21]. The field of cloud security requires more research and development
to ensure proper security to cloud users. Recently, Viaccess-Orca has proposed a
TEE architecture called data center TEE (dcTEE) for cloud computing systems [22].
The dcTEE architecture is proposed to equip a data center with TEEs like mobile
systems but taking full advantage of cloud’s elasticity and scalability. We assume
a similar architecture where each MPSoC contains multiple TEEs and the cloud
platform (consisting of these MPSoCs) also contains distributed TEEs. We restrict
our current discussion in this chapter to a single MPSoC node and consider the router
attack vulnerability that can hamper the security of a chip by launching attack at the
network abstraction layer itself.
An MPSoC can contain multiple secure (TEE) and nonsecure (REE) regions
to provide both security and high performance. On the one hand, a secure region
(TEE) ensures that sensitive data is always stored, processed, and protected with a
level of trust. Non-secure regions (REEs), on the other hand, can be configured and
customized to meet certain performance requirements. Specifications about TEE and
REE are available in [23,24]. Figure 4.1 shows an MPSoC with two TEEs and one
REE. We assume that application mapping to a set of PEs is done according to the
existing literature on TEE and REE (like [22]) following the specifications in [23,24].
In case of Figure 4.1, we assume that one TEE application is mapped to the PEs (2,0),
(3,0), (2,1), and (3,1) and the other TEE application is mapped to the PE (0,0). One
REE application is mapped to the PEs (1,0), (0,1), and (1,1). Note that the MPSoC
is used to support multi-tenant public cloud environment and different users can run
their applications on the same MPSoC. Also note that all regions inside an MPSoC
share the same NoC for communication. An attacker can launch unauthorized access
attack using router attack in an REE if two TEEs communicate over that REE [25,26].
Apart from this unauthorized access attack, an attacker can launch misrouting attack
using router attack. In this chapter, we discuss router attacks in detail that can cause
various ill effects and also various hardware-based security mechanisms against the
router attacks. These security mechanisms mainly employ monitoring to detect and
locate a malicious router.

4.2 Current approaches to secure MPSoC cloud platforms

Various aspects of MPSoC cloud platform security are considered in literature. In [27],
authors have separated the whole system into two logical domains, viz. secure and non-
secure. They have provided a list of attacks that can affect an NoC-enabled MPSoC.
TrustZone Technology in [28] is used to implement TEE in ARM MPSoCs with
single secure region. This solution is only applicable to AMBA3 AXI/APB bus-based
communication. In [29], authors have presented data protection unit in every network
interface (NI) that can protect from software attacks or more specifically unauthorized
access to memory locations by the PEs. The authors of [30] have proposed Quality
of Security Service (QoSS) using layered NoC architecture to detect attacks based
on different security rules. An authenticated encryption-based security framework in
68 Data security in cloud computing

every NI for NoC-based systems is presented in [31]. The integration of ciphering

techniques at the NI ensures the authenticity and confidentiality of the exchanged
information between secure IP cores but the AES encryption blocks used in that
solution increase the cost overhead (area and clock cycles) of the NoC. None of the
above systems have considered router attacks inside NoC.
Prior works in the literature exist that consider specific hardware attacks against
MPSoCs and suggest countermeasures. For example, in [32], an input buffer is pro-
posed that can protect an MPSoC from input signal noise. The proposed input buffer
can prevent glitch attack (a nondestructive hardware attack), if the glitch is applied
to the input signal pin.
Recommendations to reduce the risk when adopting cloud computing are given
in [33]. Like any other security area, cloud users need to adopt a risk-based approach
to move to the cloud and to select correct security options. An architecture for trusted
computing, called Terra, is proposed in [34]. Terra uses a trusted virtual machine
(VM) monitor that partitions a tamper-resistant hardware platform into multiple,
isolated VMs, providing the appearance of multiple boxes on a single, general-purpose
platform. An architecture called HyperWall is proposed in [35,36] that uses hardware
modules to protect guest VMs from an untrusted hypervisor. A hypervisor manages
memory, processor cores, and other resources of a platform. As per our understanding,
the router attack in MPSoC is presented for the first time in [25,26,37] and different
hardware-based security mechanisms are also proposed to protect from router attack.

4.3 Threat model

4.3.1 Router attack description

An attack is any action that compromises the security of information owned by an
entity/organization. Inside a router, either routing tables or hardware routing logic
implementations are used to implement routing algorithm. Router attack indicates
either a malicious modification of routing tables or routing logic. In this chapter, we
consider only router attacks due to malicious routing tables. The nonsecure region
routers are routing table-based, and hence have the flexibility to support the REE
applications. The routers in the secure region of MPSoC cloud platform have routing
logic implementation lacking any flexibility to get configured.
In a router, the relationship between the destination Port ID and the Routing
Function can be represented as (4.1).
PID = FR (SXY , DXY ) (4.1)
Here, PID indicates the destination Port ID, FR indicates the routing func-
tion/algorithm, SXY indicates the source address, and DXY indicates the destination
address. Sometimes, routing function does not depend on source address. A successful
router attack results in a modified routing function FR .
Routing table entries are configured at start/restart time or during runtime. Rout-
ing table update packets are used to configure the routers. Malicious modification of
 Multiprocessor system-on-chip for processing data in cloud computing 69

configuration information results in routing table attack. The attack can be launched
by an insider who is responsible for loading the routing tables in the MPSoC cloud
platform. Routing tables can be maliciously reconfigured at runtime by an application
that causes generation of malicious routing table update packets. Although authen-
tication mechanism can be implemented for the loading process, an insider attack
can still break that causing single point of failure. The mechanisms presented in this
chapter work at the NoC level and can also operate as a second level of protection if
authentication mechanism is present for loading.

4.3.2 The malicious effects of router attack

An attacker can launch mainly two types of attacks using malicious routing tables,
i.e., (i) misrouting attack and (ii) unauthorized access attack.

4.3.2.1 Effects of misrouting attack

For misrouting attack, different types of harmful effects are given below.

● Suboptimal routing and increased delay: Routing table attack can result in
suboptimal routing which affects the real-time applications by routing the packets
over unnecessarily long routes and thus affecting the quality-of-service.
● Congestion and link overload: The attack can lead to artificial congestion if
packets are forwarded to only certain portions of the network depending on the
modified routing table. Large volume of traffic through a limited capacity link
can overwhelm the link making it unusable.
● Deletion of PE: Wrong entries in routing tables can delete a PE in an MPSoC. All
packets can be diverted before reaching that particular destination PE. Similarly
the PE may not be able to send any packet to any other PE, because the connected
router does not route any packet from this PE anymore. This is a serious case of
denial-of-service.
● Overwhelming critical PE: If packets are routed toward a certain critical PE at a
rate that is beyond its capacity of handling, then this PE can be made unreachable
to any legitimate PE. Here legitimate PE means those PEs that are not malicious
and want to communicate with this critical PE.
● Deadlock and livelock: Improper routing tables can cause a packet to loop around
and never reach its destination. It causes deadlock and livelock because no other
packet can use that route.

4.3.2.2 Effects of unauthorized access attack

For unauthorized access attack, main harmful effect is given below.

● Illegal access to data: If the attacker can get hold of a node in nonsecure region,
then he/she can route all data from secure region to that node and thus gain
unauthorized access to secret information.
70 Data security in cloud computing

PE PE PE PE

Router Router Router Router

(0,1) (1,1) (2,1) (3,1)

Nonsecure Secure
Region Region

Secure PE PE PE PE
Region

Router Router Router Router

(0,0) (1,0) (2,0) (3,0)

PE: Processing Element

Figure 4.1 An example of router attack in a 2 × 4 mesh NoC with two secure
regions

Table 4.1 (a) Port ID assignments to different ports, (b) Normal X-coordinate and
Y-coordinate routing tables at Router (1,0), and (c) Malicious
X-coordinate and Y-coordinate routing tables for unauthorized access at
Router (1,0)

X table Y table X table Y table

Port Port ID
name Index Port Index Port Index Port Index Port
ID ID ID ID
I: Eject 0
0 4 0 2 0 0 0 0
N: North 1
1 0 1 0 1 0 1 0
S: South 2
2 3 2 1 2 0 2 0
E: East 3
3 3 3 1 3 0 3 0
W: West 4
(a) (b) (c)

4.3.3 Examples of router attack

A router attack example is shown in Figure 4.1. The cross on the dataflow indicates
that the router (0,0) does not receive any data due to router attack at the router (1,0).
Router (1,0) contains malicious routing table as given in Table 4.1(c). The port ID
assignments to router ports and a normal routing table example at router (1,0) (at East
input port) are also given in Table 4.1(a) and (b), respectively. Any packet coming
 Multiprocessor system-on-chip for processing data in cloud computing 71

X table Y table X table Y table

Index Port Index Port Index Port Index Port
ID ID ID ID
0 3 0 3 0 2 0 2
1 3 1 3 1 2 1 2
2 3 2 3 2 2 2 2
3 3 3 3 3 2 3 2

X table Y table X table Y table

Index Port Index Port Index Port Index Port
ID ID ID ID
0 1 0 1 0 4 0 4
1 1 1 1 1 4 1 4
2 1 2 1 2 4 2 4
3 1 3 1 3 4 3 4

Figure 4.2 Circular path creation by four malicious routers. Each X and Y
coordinate routing table represents a router at that location.

from a secure region (say PE (3,0)) and going to another secure region (say PE (0,0))
can be diverted to the eject port of this router (1,0). The packet becomes available to
the nonsecure PE (1,0) and that means the attack is successful. The diversion happens
irrespective of the actual destination of the packet. This is the case of unauthorized
access attack. Routing logic implementation can also be maliciously changed using
hardware Trojan-based attacks but that is outside the scope of this chapter.
Figure 4.2 shows an example of misrouting attack—more specifically creation
of a circular path using four routers. Each X and Y table pair represents a router in
that location in the figure. If all ports apart from the south port routing tables of the
top right corner router of Figure 4.2 are modified, all packets entering into the router
are diverted to the south port (port ID 2). There are no packets that can enter through
the south input port because the bottom right corner router is diverting all packets to
its West port. Hence, the circular path is created as shown in Figure 4.2.

4.4 Countermeasure for unauthorized access attack

Countermeasures for unauthorized access attack can detect, protect, and locate the
router attack. The attack is detected using monitors (runtime monitor or restart mon-
itor) located at the boundary between secure and nonsecure regions. Apart from the
monitors, ejection address checker (EAC) inside every nonsecure region router can
72 Data security in cloud computing

C C C C

Router Router Runtime- Router Router

(0,1) (1,1) Monitor (2,1) (3,1)

To Aud
To Aud
Nonsecure
Region

Secure C Secure
C C C
Region Region

Router RM Router Runtime- Router Router

(0,0) (1,0) Monitor (2,0) (3,0)

To Aud
From
Routers
Auditor
(Aud) RM: Runtime-Monitor

Figure 4.3 2 × 4 mesh NoC with runtime monitors in every row. The letter C inside
a circle represents a PE.

detect router attack. It is assumed that every receiver returns an acknowledgment

(ack) packet to the sender. Note that runtime monitor, restart monitor, and EAC are
three different countermeasures introduced in this section. Also please note that the
countermeasures presented in this section and the next section are transparent to nor-
mal cloud users. These are all hardware-based solutions and need to be implemented
by the MPSoC provider, i.e., the cloud platform provider is responsible to utilize these
security solutions in their platform.

4.4.1 Runtime monitor

Runtime monitor operates during normal operation of the MPSoC cloud platform, i.e.,
during runtime. The NoC fabric including runtime monitors is shown in Figure 4.3.
The figure shows an MPSoC cloud platform which has two secure regions and one
nonsecure region. If the secure region only accepts data and does not send out data,
runtime monitor in that region is not required. For bidirectional communication, this
monitor is necessary. All monitors at a secure region boundary are connected to
each other like a chain. The runtime monitor block diagram is shown in Figure 4.4.
Runtime monitor mainly monitors ack packet for every packet that is sent from secure
to nonsecure region. Router attack in nonsecure region results in disruption of ack
packet from reaching the router in secure region.
Runtime monitor has four registers, one for packet arriving from secure to non-
secure region (input register1) and another for packet going from nonsecure to secure
region (input register2). The remaining two registers (input register3 and input regis-
ter4) receive ack packets from the adjacent monitors. The destination checker (DC)
 Multiprocessor system-on-chip for processing data in cloud computing 73

Packet Free Free Packet

Runtime Monitor Input Arbiter

Register4 and
Nonsecure Counter0 Counter1 Crossbar
Secure
region region
DC
Router Decision Router
Count Logic
Controller
Packet Packet
Input
Input Free Free
Regis-
FIFO
Arbiter ter1
and Packet
Crossbar DC composer
Free To Free
Packet Input Aud Packet Input
Regis- Ack Arbiter FIFO
ter2 packet Input and
corroborator Register3 Crossbar
DC: Destination Checker Packet Free Packet Free

Figure 4.4 Runtime monitor block diagram with connections to secure and
nonsecure region routers

module checks the ack packet’s destination address. If the ack packet is destined for
the current monitor, it is passed to the count controller module through the arbiter and
crossbar module. Otherwise, the ack packet is sent to the next monitor through the
corresponding arbiter and crossbar module. Runtime monitor has as many counters
as there are routers outside this secure region in that row. In the example shown in
Figure 4.3, there are two counters. The first packet arriving from the secure region
destined to a particular router starts the corresponding counter. In every clock cycle,
this counter is incremented by 1. It will not be reset or restarted for subsequent pack-
ets while awaiting ack packet from the destination. Source addresses of all packets
traveling from secure to nonsecure region are changed in the runtime monitor with the
nearest secure region router address. This ensures that all corresponding ack packets
arrive at the concerned runtime monitor.
Every counter will count up to a max-count that can be expressed as:
Max-count (in cycles) = [Tmin + f (τ , I )]2NH + TPr + Tmon (4.2)
Here Tmin is the minimum time required for a packet to leave a router after entering it.
The function f (τ , I ) represents a term corresponding to the network traffic condition.
This function depends on traffic distribution τ and injection rate I . Max-count value is
decided based on the total packet latency (packet going and ack coming) correspond-
ing to the farthest destination. NH is the hop count of the furthest destination. TPr and
74 Data security in cloud computing

Tmon are PE processing time and delay in monitor, respectively. The max-count value
ensures that, in an attack free MPSoC cloud platform, an ack packet indeed reaches
the runtime monitor within the max-count number of cycles. Max-count of counters
does not have any influence on the performance of normal packet flow in the NoC. It
only influences the malicious router detection performance, i.e., the time required to
detect the location of a malicious router.
Runtime monitor has an ack packet corroborator module. It checks the destination
address of ack packets received from the nonsecure region. If an ack packet is destined
for the current monitor, it is passed on to the count controller module through the
arbiter and crossbar module. Otherwise, the ack packet is sent to the next monitor
through the corresponding arbiter and crossbar module. A counter is stopped by
the count controller module if the corresponding ack packet is received within the
stipulated max-count value. If not, the counter module sends a count-expired signal
to the decision logic. Decision logic changes the state of the monitor from normal
to “attack detected.” It stops all packet movement from secure region to nonsecure
region. Further, it signals the packet composer to form monitoring packets. Source
address field of these packets carry the address of the nearest secure region router.
As an example, in this chapter, we consider YX deterministic routing, which routes
packets in the horizontal (X) direction after traversing the vertical (Y) direction.
Hence, a packet traveling through the monitor has its destination in the same row as
the monitor. A malicious router could be any of the routers lying in the same row
as the destination router. In order to determine the exact location of the malicious
router, the packet composer sends monitoring packets starting from the router closest
to the monitor to the farthest router in the row (till the destination router). Payload
of a monitoring packet does not contain any meaningful data. These are only used
to generate ack packets in the destination PE. Counter-based technique mentioned
above is used to monitor these ack packets also (generated by monitoring packets).
This helps the monitor to exactly locate the malicious router. Note that all the PEs
located before the malicious router are able to return ack packets. The malicious router
diverts the packet and hence no ack packet arrives at the monitor and the location
of that malicious router is identified. After detection of a malicious router, runtime
monitor sends the router address to the auditor. This is achieved by forming a packet
with the malicious router address in the payload field. The packet travels through the
monitor chain and reaches the auditor at the end.
The auditor collects contents of routing table of the attacked router, so that the
attack can be read off-line and analyzed. Figure 4.5 shows the block diagram of the
auditor. First, it receives the malicious router address from the corresponding monitor.
Then the auditor’s Decision module sends an enable signal to the corresponding router.
The routing table uploader module of the attacked router, after receiving this signal,
uploads the routing table to the auditor.
Now there is a possibility that the attacker might send false ack packet with
legitimate destination address. To mitigate this problem of source authentication in
nonsecure region, router address is stored in a nonvolatile memory in the router and
cannot be changed by attacker. This source address is automatically added to a packet
when the packet is ejected from the PE. So, even if the attacker wants to send an ack
 Multiprocessor system-on-chip for processing data in cloud computing 75

From monitors Disable signal to all routers

Router address Disabling

Storing register module

Routing
Table From first
Decision Row routers
holder
module

Routing
Table From second
Enabler holder Row routers
Enable signals to routing table up -loader
Module
Enable signal
(for restart
Auditor to all restart
Monitor)
monitors
Monitoring completion signal Control signal to all
from restart monitors switching modules

Figure 4.5 Block diagram of Auditor

packet, it will not contain a legitimate source router address. An ack packet’s source
address is used to reset the corresponding counter. If the ack packet does not contain
legitimate source address, the corresponding counter will expire and router attack
will be detected.

4.4.2 Restart monitor

Restart monitor works before starting of normal MPSoC cloud platform operation.
The NoC fabric with restart monitors is shown in Figure 4.6. There is a switch in every
row of the NoC at the boundary between the secure and nonsecure region. Each switch
and monitor at a secure region boundary are connected to other switches and monitors,
respectively, as a chain. The auditor receives data from the end of the chain and sends
data to a module through the beginning of the chain. In case of enable signal (for
restart monitor) and control signal (for switching module), auditor sends the signal
to the first module only. That module sends the signal to the next module in the chain
and in this way all modules get required signal. The block diagram of restart monitor
is shown in Figure 4.7. The restart monitor is not directly connected to a secure region
router as shown in Figure 4.6. After restart, auditor enables the restart monitors and
disconnects the secure and nonsecure region routers using the switching module that
uses simple multiplexing technique. Restart monitor does not need to detect router
attacks like runtime monitor because it operates during restart time before the start of
normal operations. The monitor only needs to check the existence of malicious router
and its location using monitoring packets like runtime monitor. Restart monitor has
only three input registers (refer Figure 4.7) instead of four unlike runtime monitor
76 Data security in cloud computing

C C C C
From Aud
Router Router Router Router
Sw
(0,1) (1,1) (2,1) (3,1)

To Aud
To Aud Restart-
Nonsecure
Monitor
Region

Secure C C C C
Region
Router Sw Router Sw Router Router
(0,0) (1,0) (2,0) (3,0)
To
Aud Restart-
RM To Aud Monitor Secure
Region
From
Routers
Auditor
(Aud) RM: Restart-Monitor, Sw: Switching module

Figure 4.6 2 × 4 mesh NoC with Restart Monitors in every row

Enable signal Packet Free Free Packet

Control signal
Enabler Input Arbiter
Register3 and
Counter0 Counter1 Crossbar
DC
From Decision
router Count Logic
Input Controller
FIFO Packet Packet
Free composer
Switching to
module router Arbiter
Nonsecure and Restart
region Crossbar DC Monitor
Router From
router To
Free Input Aud
Regis- Ack Arbiter
Packet ter1 Packet Input
to and
corroborator Register2 Crossbar
router
Enable Packet Free Packet Free
Control signal DC: Destination Checker

Figure 4.7 Block diagram of Restart Monitor

 Multiprocessor system-on-chip for processing data in cloud computing 77

and requires less area. Most of the modules and their operations in restart monitor
are same as runtime monitor.
After completion of monitoring all routers in the row outside this secure region,
the restart monitor sends a monitoring completion signal to the auditor. Auditor then
disables the monitors and sends control signal to switching modules so that the routers
of secure and nonsecure region get connected for start of normal operation. Since the
MPSoC cloud platform is not available for normal operation when restart monitor is
monitoring the routers, there is no unauthorized access to data during this period. The
only drawback of this technique is that the delay in starting normal operation of the
MPSoC cloud platform is proportional to the number of routers in the NoC.
Instead of counting up to max-count as in the case of the runtime monitor, each
counter in the restart monitor is set to count up to a specific value. This value is based
on the topological distance of the corresponding router from the restart monitor. The
count can hence be expressed as:
Count (in cycles) = Tmin 2NHi + TPr + Tmon (4.3)
Here Tmin is the minimum time required for a packet to leave a router after entering
it. Count value is decided based on the total packet latency (packet going and ack
coming) corresponding to a destination. NHi is the hop count of the i-th destination.
Here i ∈ {1, . . . , n} with 1 is for the closest destination. TPr and Tmon are PE processing
time and delay in monitor, respectively. Restart monitor can send monitoring packets
one after another without waiting for ack to return—this reduces the total time required
to monitor all routers. Ack packets arrive in the same order in which monitoring
packets were sent. Whenever there is no ack packet from a router, the corresponding
router is detected as malicious and reported to the auditor.

4.4.3 Ejection address checker

EAC is located inside every nonsecure region router and operates during normal
MPSoC cloud platform operation. The block diagram of EAC is shown in Figure 4.8

Packet toward
To PE
eject port Comparison
module

Router address Packet

from NVM composer

Packet from
Packet toward PE
routing

Figure 4.8 Block diagram of ejection address checker

78 Data security in cloud computing

Table 4.2 Comparison between runtime monitor, restart monitor, and EAC

Runtime-monitor Restart-monitor EAC

Delay added 1 0 1
(in clock cycles)

Works during Runtime Restart-time Runtime

Number of routers More than 1; More than 1; Only 1

supported depends on the depends on the
numbers of counters numbers of counters

Advantage No initialization delay No runtime delay; No No initialization

packet loss; No delay
reduction of throughput

Disadvantage Runtime delay; Initial Initialization delay Runtime delay;

loss of packets; Reduction of
Reduction of throughput
throughput

which clearly shows that it is a hardware module which is not configurable and hence
is protected from attacks similar to those directed toward routing tables. In case of
unauthorized access attack, packets destined for different routers are diverted to the
eject port for capturing. The EAC consists of a comparison module to compare the
destination address of a packet toward the eject port with the router’s address from
NVM. If both addresses are same, it allows the packet to pass to the PE. If the addresses
are different, comparison module signals the packet composer to form a packet to be
sent to auditor. Also the state is changed to “attack detected.” Packet composer takes
the source address from NVM, auditor destination address, and a particular payload
to indicate the attack detection. The packet is sent for routing toward the auditor. Here
it is assumed that a packet can be routed to the auditor through the NoC itself.
Table 4.2 compares runtime monitor, restart monitor, and EAC.

4.4.4 Simulation and synthesis results

Bluespec System Verilog [38] is used for design and simulation of the system. NoC of
Figure 4.1 is used for simulation. First, we update the routing tables with correct data
for normal operation. Artificial traffic generators are used to generate traffic. Warmup
period of 1,000 clock cycles, measurement period of 1,000 to 0.1 million clock cycles,
and drainage period of 0.1 million to 1 million clock cycles are considered. A packet
injection rate of 20%, frequency of operation of 1.11 GHz, and 32 bit packets are used
in simulation. An average throughput of 222.22 million packets per second (M pkts/s)
is obtained. Throughput under normal conditions are shown in Figure 4.9. In this case,
the destination router (0,0) receives data correctly as shown in Figure 4.9(c) and the
eject port of router (1,0) does not receive any data as shown in Figure 4.9(b). Next, we
simulate attack on router (1,0) (refer Figure 4.1) by loading malicious routing table.
 Multiprocessor system-on-chip for processing data in cloud computing 79

250 250
250

Throughput (M pkts/s)
Throughput (M pkts/s)

Throughput (M pkts/s)
200 200
200
150 150 150
100 100 100
50 50 50
0 0 0

0.9
2.7
4.5
6.3
8.1
9.9
0 10 20 0 10 20
Time (ns) Time (ns)
Time (ns)
(a) (b) (c)

Figure 4.9 Dataflow during normal operation. (a) Secure region to nonsecure
region dataflow at monitor, (b) dataflow at Router (1,0) eject port, and
(c) dataflow at actual destination Router (0,0)

250 250 250

Throughput (M pkts/s)

Throughput (M pkts/s)

Throughput (M pkts/s)
200 200 200

150 150 150

100 100 100

50 50 50

0 0 0
0 10 20 0 10 20 0.9 3.6 6.3 9
Time (ns) Time (ns) Time (ns)
(a) (b) (c)

Figure 4.10 Dataflow after attack without runtime monitor in place. (a) Secure
region to nonsecure region dataflow at monitor, (b) dataflow at router
(1,0) eject port, and (c) dataflow at actual destination router (0,0)

It can be clearly seen from Figure 4.10 that traffic destined for router (0,0) is diverted
to router (1,0) as shown in Figure 4.10(b) and (c), respectively. So, it can be seen that
the attack is possible and an attacker can gain unauthorized access to all data coming
from or going to a secure region of MPSoC cloud platform. Constant dataflows (i.e.,
horizontal lines) in Figures 4.9 and 4.10 depict absence of runtime monitors and
resulting dataflow blocking. Figures 4.9(b), 4.10(c), and 4.11(c) indicate the absence
of dataflow.
NoC of Figure 4.3 is used to simulate the operation of runtime monitor. This NoC
is similar to Figure 4.1 except the presence of the monitors in each row. Detection
of the attacked router by the runtime monitor is shown in Figure 4.11. From the start
of packet transmission to the expiration of the corresponding counter, normal packet
80 Data security in cloud computing

flow is continuous as shown in Figure 4.11(a). After expiration of counter, monitor

detects an attack. It stops all dataflow between secure and nonsecure regions. After this
time, monitor sends a simple monitoring packet to each router toward the destination
from nearest to farthest to detect the location of the malicious router. So, the data rate
is not zero but negligible compared to the average throughput of 222.22 M pkts/s.

250 250 250

Throughput (M pkts/s)
Throughput (M pkts/s)

200 Throughput (M pkts/s) 200 200

150 150 150

100 100 100

50 50 50

0 0 0

0.9
2.7
4.5
6.3
8.1
9.9
0 10 20 0 10 20
Time (ns) Time (ns) Time (ns)
(a) (b) (c)

Figure 4.11 Dataflow after attack with runtime monitor in place. (a) Secure region
to nonsecure region dataflow at monitor, (b) dataflow at router (1,0)
eject port, and (c) dataflow at actual destination router (0,0)

120

103.4
100
100
Relative area in percentage (%)

80

60

40
26.6
22
20

0
Router Router with Ejection Runtime Monitor Restart Monitor
address checker

Figure 4.12 Relative areas of router including EAC, runtime monitor, and restart
monitor compared to a router
 Multiprocessor system-on-chip for processing data in cloud computing 81

Synopsys Design Compiler is used for area estimation using 65 nm Faraday

technology libraries. Faraday Memaker memory compiler (65 nm technology) [39]
is used for NVM area measurement. The minimum size of NVM (ROM) that can be
compiled using the memory compiler is 512 bits and the area obtained is 2,305 μm2 .
It becomes 18 μm2 after scaling this to obtain 4-bit NVM area. Note that the scaled
down area of a 4-bit NVM is a pessimistic estimate since the compiler generated area
(for 512 bits) includes associated modules (like decoder). The router area including
NVM is 8,756 μm2 . The router area including EAC is 9,056 μm2 , an increase of
3.4% compared to a normal router. The runtime monitor and the restart monitor areas
are 2,329 and 1,926 μm2 , respectively. This means runtime monitor area is 26.6%
and restart monitor area is 22% of a single router area. Figure 4.12 shows relative
area comparisons of different solutions relative to a router area. The area overhead of
different monitors are acceptable because both the monitors (runtime and restart) can
monitor multiple routers.

4.5 Countermeasure for misrouting attack

Countermeasure for misrouting attack is discussed in this section. The whole MPSoC
cloud platform structure is shown in Figure 4.13 including the restart monitors.

C C C C
Nonsecure From Aud
Region
Router Router Router Router
(0,1) (1,1) (2,1) (3,1)

To Aud
To Aud Restart-
IM Monitor Secure
Region
To Aud
Secure C C C C
Region
Router Router Router Router
(0,0) (1,0) (2,0) (3,0)
From restart-
monitors To Restart-
RM
Aud Monitor
To
From Aud To Aud
Auditor Routers IM
(Aud)
To Aud
From
RM: Restart-Monitor
IM

Figure 4.13 The whole MPSoC cloud platform structure including restart
monitors. C in circle stands for PE.
82 Data security in cloud computing

The nonsecure region is divided into sections. Here, one section consists of a row
of routers. A local monitoring module inside every nonsecure region router detects
the misrouting attack. An intermediate manager (IM) coordinates these modules in a
section of routers. All the IMs are managed by the auditor.

4.5.1 Local monitoring module

The block diagram of local monitoring module is shown in Figure 4.14. Input packet
header checking by header checking module detects the correctness of the routed
packet in deterministic XY/YX routing following routers. For XY routing, a packet
is not allowed for Y-dimensional movement, unless its X-dimensional routing is com-
plete. In addition, packets are not allowed to take X dimension if it is currently
following Y dimension. Misrouting can be detected if the packet’s destination address
(X andY coordinates) in its header is compared against the current router’s address (X
and Y coordinates). If the NoC has path diversity or is using adaptive routing, packets
are not fixed to a particular path. Runtime variability in path selection reduces the
effectiveness of header checking mechanism. Four 1-bit registers (malicious bit reg)
indicate a malicious router detection at the corresponding input port. The correspon-
dence between input port and 1-bit register is fixed. Whenever a malicious router
is detected at an input port, the corresponding bit register is set. The decision logic
checks these four 1-bit registers in every clock cycle. Whenever any bit is set, it sends
a pulse to IM to set a 1-bit register in IM corresponding to this router. After detection
at an input port, decision logic disables the input as well as output communication of

Malicious N
From bit reg Malicious
North setter bit reg
Header Address To Aud
input port
checking generator
module Malicious S
From bit reg Malicious
South setter bit reg To IM
input port Header
checking From IM
module E Decision
Malicious
From Malicious Logic
bit reg
East bit reg
setter
input port Header Blocking signals
checking to four I/O
module W
Malicious ports
From Malicious
bit reg
West bit reg
setter
input port Header
checking
module

Figure 4.14 Block diagram of local monitoring module. Reg stands for register in
the figure.
 Multiprocessor system-on-chip for processing data in cloud computing 83

the concerned port. The reason is that sending data to a malicious router is waste of
valuable data. The address generator module generates the malicious router address
taking into consideration which input port has detected it. Malicious router is the
one that has sent a wrong packet detected by header checking module. The address
generator module forms a combined address message consisting of the current router
address and the generated malicious router address. This message is sent to Aud when-
ever requested by IM. The header checking module operates in parallel with other
operations at an input port like checking the routing table. So its operation does not
cause any latency increment of packets. Same is true for malicious bit register setter.
So it is evident that the local monitoring module in routers does not affect the MPSoC
cloud platform performance.

4.5.2 Intermediate manager

The block diagram of IM is shown in Figure 4.15. IM mainly solves the scalability
issue of auditor. If all the routers or more specifically all local monitoring modules
are connected directly to the Aud, it becomes a bottleneck for Aud. IM handles a
section (row in present case) of routers in nonsecure region and all IMs are connected
to Aud. If IM manages N routers in a section, it has N 1-bit registers. Decision logic
inside IM continuously checks these 1-bit registers in every clock. Whenever a bit
is set by a router’s local monitoring module, IM sends a pulse to Aud to set a 1-bit
register corresponding to this IM. Then IM disables further setting of any malicious
bit register that are not set yet inside IM. Whenever Aud requests for router address,
IM takes decision based on the set malicious bit registers. It considers one router at
a time among all the routers corresponding to the set bit registers. It sends a request
to the selected router to send malicious router address directly to Aud. Whenever
Aud sends a router address for routing table upload, IM sends this request to the
corresponding router to load its routing table to Aud directly.

Address request Routing table

to routers upload request
to routers
From From
router0 router1

Malicious Malicious
bit register bit register
To Aud
Decision
Logic
From Aud
Intermediate Manager

Figure 4.15 Block diagram of Intermediate Manager

84 Data security in cloud computing

4.5.3 Simulation and synthesis results

For simulation, we use the whole MPSoC cloud platform structure depicted in Figure
4.13. Our aim is to test the router’s local monitoring module or more specifically the
input header checking module for deterministic YX routing. We consider the router
(0,1) as malicious and we send a packet into the West input port of the router (1,1)
trying to go to the South output port violating the YX routing algorithm. We find
that this violating packet is checked and stopped correctly in the same clock cycle in
router (1,1) and the router (0,1) is correctly reported as malicious.
Synopsys Design Compiler is used for area estimation using 65-nm Faraday tech-
nology libraries. The router’s area with input header checking module is 9,359 μm2 .
The IM’s area is 22 μm2 and the auditor’s area is 1,073 μm2 . It is to be noted that
this auditor is more complex than that shown in Figure 4.5. It supports the mod-
ules (local monitoring modules and IMs) described in this section in addition to the
modules shown in Figure 4.5. Detailed description of this auditor can be found in
[25,37].

4.6 Summary, future research directions, and further readings

In this chapter, we have considered the attacks where an attacker targets the hardware
cloud platform itself and we have also discussed different security mechanisms to
ensure security of the information flow within an MPSoC cloud platform. Different
PEs in an MPSoC are usually interconnected by a scalable medium like an NoC. In
this chapter, we have shown a new type of security vulnerability on NoC architecture
of an MPSoC cloud platform, i.e., possibility of router attack inside NoC. Until
now, most of the research work was aimed at strengthening the performance, area,
and power of NoC architectures. Very recently security is gaining importance in
the NoC research community, but it is very important topic and must be taken into
consideration at the time of system design. In future, all the cloud computing MPSoC
platforms will have NoC as their on-chip communication medium. So taking NoC
security into main design flow will help future cloud platform engineers to build
not only a high-performance system but also a robust one which can offer fully
trustworthy solution. By ensuring security of data inside each MPSoC, the cloud
platform vendors can ensure security of data throughout the cloud computing system.
We have discussed various monitoring-based countermeasures to deal with the router
attack in an MPSoC cloud platform. We have also shown the simulation results that
show that the mechanisms can successfully detect the attack and the malicious router
address also. The restart monitor, the runtime monitor, the IM, and the auditor areas
are 22%, 26.6%, 0.2%, and 12.2% of a router area, respectively, which is acceptable.
As a future research direction, the router attack detection methods can be
improved further. Note that the current MPSoC cloud platform technology is in
nanometer region and radiation effects can also change memory bits in routing tables.
In future, this effect needs to be clearly distinguished from a router attack. Currently,
the administrator intervention is required to rectify any malicious routing tables.
 Multiprocessor system-on-chip for processing data in cloud computing 85

This process can be automated in future to reload correct routing tables without
administrator intervention.
Interested reader can find further details of the techniques discussed in this
chapter in [25,37]. We have also presented an earlier version of the work in [26].

Acknowledgments
This work was supported by the PhD scholarship from the MHRD, Government of
India. We want to thank Prof Rajaraman of SERC, IISc for reviewing this chapter and
suggesting some changes.

References

[1] T. Bjerregaard and S. Mahadevan, “A survey of research and practices of

network-on-chip,” ACM Computing Surveys, vol. 38, no. 1, June 2006.
[2] W. Dally and B. Towles, Principles and Practices of Interconnection Networks.
USA: Morgan Kaufmann Publishers, 2004.
[3] M. Dall’osso, G. Biccari, L. Giovannini, D. Bertozzi, and L. Benini, “Xpipes:
a latency insensitive parameterized network-on-chip architecture for multi-
processor SoCs,” in Computer Design, 2003. Proceedings. 21st International
Conference on, San Jose, CA, USA, 2003, pp. 536–539.
[4] K. Goossens, J. Dielissen, and A. Radulescu, “Æthereal network on chip: con-
cepts, architectures, and implementations,” Design Test of Computers, IEEE,
vol. 22, no. 5, pp. 414–421, 2005.
[5] L. Wang, H. Song, Y. Jiang, and L. Zhang, “A routing-table-based adaptive
and minimal routing scheme on network-on-chip architectures,” Computers
and Electrical Engineering, vol. 35, no. 6, pp. 846–855, 2009.
[6] T. Mak, P. Cheung, K.-P. Lam, and W. Luk, “Adaptive routing in network-on-
chips using a dynamic-programming network,” Industrial Electronics, IEEE
Transactions on, vol. 58, no. 8, pp. 3701–3716, 2011.
[7] M. Palesi, R. Holsmark, S. Kumar, and V. Catania, “Application specific rout-
ing algorithms for networks on chip,” Parallel and Distributed Systems, IEEE
Transactions on, vol. 20, no. 3, pp. 316–330, 2009.
[8] Y. E. Krasteva, E. de la Torre, and T. Riesgo, “Reconfigurable networks on
chip: DRNoC architecture,” Journal of Systems Architecture, vol. 56, no. 7,
pp. 293–302, 2010.
[9] I. Loi, F. Angiolini, and L. Benini, “Synthesis of low-overhead configurable
source routing tables for network interfaces,” in Design, Automation Test
in Europe Conference Exhibition, 2009. DATE ’09, Nice, France, 2009,
pp. 262–267.
[10] A. Shahabi, N. Honarmand, and Z. Navabi, “Programmable routing tables for
degradable torus-based networks on chips,” in Circuits and Systems, 2007.
86 Data security in cloud computing

ISCAS 2007. IEEE International Symposium on, New Orleans, Louisiana,

USA, 2007, pp. 1065–1068.
[11] J. Howard, S. Dighe, Y. Hoskote et al., “A 48-core ia-32 message-passing
processor with dvfs in 45 nm cmos,” in 2010 IEEE International Solid-
State Circuits Conference (ISSCC), San Francisco, CA, February 2010,
pp. 108–109.
[12] TILE-Gx72 Processor Product Brief. Mellanox Technologies, 2016. [Online].
Available: www.mellanox.com / related-docs / prod_multi_core / PB_TILE-
Gx72.pdf
[13] Zynq UltraScale+ MPSoC ProductTables and Product Selection Guide. Xilinx,
2016. [Online]. Available: https://www.xilinx.com/support/documentation/
selection-guides/zynq-ultrascale-plus-product-selection-guide.pdf
[14] GPU cloud computing, 2016. [Online]. Available: http://www.nvidia.com/
object/gpu-cloud-computing.html
[15] J. Dean and S. Ghemawat, “Mapreduce: Simplified data processing on large
clusters,” Communications of the ACM, vol. 51, no. 1, pp. 107–113, January
2008. [Online]. Available: http://doi.acm.org/10.1145/1327452.1327492
[16] B. He, W. Fang, Q. Luo, N. K. Govindaraju, and T. Wang, “Mars: A mapreduce
framework on graphics processors,” in Proceedings of the 17th International
Conference on Parallel Architectures and Compilation Techniques, ser. PACT
’08. Toronto, Ontario, Canada: ACM, 2008, pp. 260–269. [Online]. Available:
http://doi.acm.org/10.1145/1454115.1454152
[17] C. Ranger, R. Raghuraman, A. Penmetsa, G. Bradski, and C. Kozyrakis, “Eval-
uating mapreduce for multi-core and multiprocessor systems,” in 2007 IEEE
13th International Symposium on High Performance Computer Architecture,
Scottsdale, AZ, February 2007, pp. 13–24.
[18] L. Chen, X. Huo, and G. Agrawal, “Accelerating mapreduce on a coupled
cpu-gpu architecture,” in High Performance Computing, Networking, Storage
and Analysis (SC), 2012 International Conference for, Salt Lake City, UT,
November 2012, pp. 1–11.
[19] R. Farivar, A. Verma, E. M. Chan, and R. H. Campbell, “Mithra: Multiple
data independent tasks on a heterogeneous resource architecture,” in 2009
IEEE International Conference on Cluster Computing and Workshops, New
Orleans, LA, August 2009, pp. 1–10.
[20] J. A. Stuart and J. D. Owens, “Multi-gpu mapreduce on gpu clusters,” in 2011
IEEE International Parallel Distributed Processing Symposium, Anchorage,
AK, May 2011, pp. 1068–1079.
[21] Security as a Service, 2016. [Online]. Available: https://cloudsecurityalliance.
org/group/security-as-a-service/
[22] Trusted Execution Environments for Cloud Infrastructure: From Server
Blades to Datacenters (white paper). Viaccess-Orca and Trustonic, 2016.
[Online]. Available: http://www.viaccess-orca.com/resource-center/white-
papers/tee-environments-for-cloud-infrastructure.html-0
[23] The Trusted Execution Environment: Delivering Enhanced Security at
a Lower Cost to the Mobile Market (white paper). GlobalPlatform
 Multiprocessor system-on-chip for processing data in cloud computing 87

Inc., February 2011. [Online]. Available: https://www.globalplatform.org/

documents/whitepapers/GlobalPlatform_TEE_Whitepaper_2015.pdf
[24] GlobalPlatform Device Technology TEE System Architecture Version 1.0
(white paper). GlobalPlatform Inc., December 2011. [Online]. Available:
https://www.globalplatform.org/specificationsdevice.asp
[25] A. Biswas, S. Nandy, and R. Narayan, “Router attack toward noc-enabled
mpsoc and monitoring countermeasures against such threat,” Circuits, Sys-
tems, and Signal Processing, vol. 34, no. 10, pp. 3241–3290, 2015. [Online].
Available: http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s00034-015-9980-0
[26] A. Biswas, S. Nandy, and R. Narayan, “Network-on-chip router attacks and
their prevention in mp-socs with multiple trusted execution environments,” in
Electronics, Computing and Communication Technologies (IEEE CONECCT),
2015 IEEE International Conference on, Bangalore, July 2015, pp. 1–6.
[27] S. Evain and J.-P. Diguet, “From NoC security analysis to design solutions,” in
Signal Processing Systems Design and Implementation, 2005. IEEE Workshop
on, Athens, Greece, 2005, pp. 166–171.
[28] ARM Security Technology Building a Secure System using TrustZone
Technology (white paper). ARM Limited, April 2009. [Online]. Available:
http://infocenter.arm.com / help / topic /com.arm.doc.prd29-genc-009492c/
PRD29-GENC-009492C_trustzone_security_whitepaper.pdf
[29] L. Fiorin, G. Palermo, and C. Silvano, “A security monitoring service for
NoCs,” in Proceedings of the 6th IEEE/ACM/IFIP International Conference
on Hardware/Software Codesign and System Synthesis, ser. CODES+ISSS
’08. ACM, Atlanta, GA, USA, 2008, pp. 197–202.
[30] J. Sepulveda, R. Pires, G. Gogniat, W. Jiang Chau, and M. Strum, “QoSS hierar-
chical NoC-based architecture for MPSoC dynamic protection,” International
Journal of Reconfigurable Computing, vol. 2012, p. 10, 2012.
[31] H. Kapoor, G. Rao, S. Arshi, and G. Trivedi, “A security framework for noc
using authenticated encryption and session keys,” Circuits, Systems, and Sig-
nal Processing, vol. 32, no. 6, pp. 2605–2622, 2013. [Online]. Available:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s00034-013-9568-5
[32] A. K. Biswas, “Wide voltage input receiver with hysteresis characteristic to
reduce input signal noise effect,” ETRI Journal, vol. 35, no. 5, pp. 797–807,
2013.
[33] Security Guidance for Critical Areas of Focus in Cloud Computing V3.0.
Cloud Security Alliance, 2011. [Online]. Available: https://downloads.
cloudsecurityalliance.org/assets/research/security-guidance/csaguide.v3.0.pdf
[34] T. Garfinkel, B. Pfaff, J. Chow, M. Rosenblum, and D. Boneh, “Terra:
A virtual machine-based platform for trusted computing,” in Proceedings
of the Nineteenth ACM Symposium on Operating Systems Principles, ser.
SOSP ’03. New York, NY: ACM, 2003, pp. 193–206. [Online]. Available:
http://doi.acm.org/10.1145/945445.945464
[35] J. Szefer and R. B. Lee, “Architectural support for hypervisor-secure virtu-
alization,” in Proceedings of the Seventeenth International Conference on
Architectural Support for Programming Languages and Operating Systems,
88 Data security in cloud computing

ser. ASPLOS XVII. New York, NY: ACM, 2012, pp. 437–450. [Online].
Available: http://doi.acm.org/10.1145/2150976.2151022
[36] J. Szefer and R. B. Lee, Hardware-Enhanced Security for Cloud Computing.
New York, NY: Springer New York, 2014, pp. 57–76. [Online]. Available:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-9278-8_3
[37] A. K. Biswas, “Securing multiprocessor systems-on-chip,” PhD dissertation,
Department of Electronic Systems Engineering, Indian Institute of Science,
Bangalore, August 2016. [Online]. Available: http://etd.ncsi.iisc.ernet.
in/handle/2005/2554
[38] Bluespec, 2013. [Online]. Available: http://www.bluespec.com
[39] Faraday Memaker, 2014. [Online]. Available: http://freelibrary.faraday-
tech.com/ips/65library.html
 Chapter 5
Distributing encoded data for private
processing in the cloud
Mark A. Will∗ and Ryan K. L. Ko∗

Abstract
Traditional cryptography techniques require our data to be unencrypted and to be
processed correctly. This means that at some stage on a system we have no control
over, our data will be processed in plain text. Solutions that allow the computation
of arbitrary operations over data securely in the cloud are currently impractical. The
holy grail of cryptography, fully homomorphic encryption, still requires minutes
to compute a single operation. To provide a practical solution, this chapter proposes
taking a different approach to the problem of securely processing data. This is achieved
by each cloud service receiving an encoded part of the data, which is not enough
to decode the plain-text value. The security strength is shifted from a computation
problem to the sheer number possible options. Given the greater threat to data stored
in the cloud is from insiders, this is the primary attack vector the presented schemes
Bin Encoding and FRagmenting Individual Bits (FRIBs) aim to protect against.

5.1 Introduction
Private information in the cloud is at constant risk of attack. Recent information
regarding the Yahoo hack reveals that a billion accounts were stolen [1]. Furthermore,
insider attacks from cloud employees and administrators1 are a threat, and arguably
the bigger threat to customer data [3–5]. A survey by Kaspersky and B2B International
revealed that 73% of companies have had internal information security incidents, and
stated that the single largest cause of confidential data loss is by insiders (42%) [5].
Therefore, a current research challenge is to allow a user to control their own security,
providing the ability to protect data from both insider and outsider attacks while
maintaining functionality.

∗
Cyber Security Lab, University of Waikato, New Zealand
1
An engineer at Google abused his privileged administrator rights to spy on teenagers using the GTalk
service. Only after the teenagers’ parents reported the administrator, Google was made aware [2].
90 Data security in cloud computing

Given how impractical solutions are currently, we have taken a different approach
to the concept of processing data securely. We propose encoding and distributing data
to different cloud service providers. This chapter provides a summary of two previ-
ously published works: (1) Bin Encoding [6] and (2) FRagmenting Individual Bits
(FRIBs) [7]. Both schemes presented were designed to meet the following design
goals.
● No single server can reveal the full data. To protect privacy, each server should
not be able to decode any value.
● Full cloud service. The schemes should be easy to implement on current cloud
infrastructure, for example, Amazon AWS [8] or Microsoft Azure [9], and not
require any special hardware or equipment.
● Practical performance. Should be usable, allowing today’s users of the cloud to
be protected, while still getting computational functionality.
● Accurate results. For arbitrary secure processing, the correct result should be
returned 100% of the time, where approximate string searching is best effort
because of the nature of the problem.
The threat models against which we evaluate our methods are based on the fol-
lowing assumptions: (1) the communication channel between each distributed server
and the client is secure; (2) each server encrypts user data before storing it to disk;
(3) each server has no knowledge on other servers used to store data and (4) data is
stored across multiple cloud service providers.
Based on these assumptions, there are two types of attacker to evaluate against: a
malicious insider from the cloud service and a malicious user/outsider. Both present
similar threats; however, a malicious insider has an advantage because he or she
already has access to one cloud service providers system. If a malicious insider
manages to bypass all internal security, for example, access policies and permissions,
then they can discover parts of the distributed data. Now they become the same as any
other malicious user, as they can try to break into all the other cloud service providers.
This summaries into two attack vectors: breaking the data with one set of distributed
data and getting all the data from each system.

5.2 Summary of distributed encoding and related work

5.2.1 Encoding
One of the oldest encryption techniques known is the Caesar cipher, named after
Julius Caesar who used it to protect messages of high importance, such as military
instructions. This is a type of substitution cipher, which maps plain-text values to
their cipher-text counterparts at an shifted index in the alphabet. Decoding requires
the shift number, which is the secret key. However in the case of a random one-to-one
mapping as used by Mary, Queen of Scots,2 the fixed mapping would be the secret.

2
Mary’s secret messages were broken via frequency analysis, which led to her execution in 1587 [10].
Hence this attack vector for string securing is covered in [6] and briefly mentioned in Section 5.5.
 Distributing encoded data for private processing in the cloud 91

An everyday case where encoding has offered data privacy to people is those who
can speak another language. For example, if you live in an English-speaking country
and understand Mandarin Chinese, anything you type or speak will be foreign to most.
Therefore, notifications on your phone’s lock screen have a degree of protection if
they are in another language. A substitution cipher follows this principle, where
it can be thought of mapping one language to another. But where a language can
be understood by many, secured data should only be understood by the intended
parties.

“Treat your password like

your toothbrush. Don’t let
anybody else use it, and
get a new one every six
months.”
– Clifford Stoll – Clifford Stoll

The difference between encoding and encryption is minuscule. Both transform

data, but encryption keeps some part of the process a secret. Without this secret value,
it should be computationally intensive to break. Therefore if only the intended parties
have the secret, then the data is secured from everyone else. This traditional cryptog-
raphy follows the principle defined by the Dutch cryptographer Auguste Kerckhoffs,
where a cryptosystem must not depend on keeping the algorithm safe, only the secret
key [11].
A lesser known principle and a widely rejected one is security through obscurity,
which states that security is provided by the secrecy of the design/implementations.
This should not be the only defence in place, however, can be combined with the
Kerckhoffs’s principle. In this chapter we keep some part of the encoding process
secret, but we also distributed the data. The distribution is similar to security through
obscurity, as each server should have no knowledge of others, and probably has
security vulnerabilities that are not currently discovered. However if the servers are
running on various hardware and software, then a single vulnerability is not enough
to gain access to all servers.
An alternative to distributing data, homomorphic encryption exists in 2 flavours:
partially homomorphic encryption (PHE) and fully homomorphic encryption (FHE).
PHE supports a single operation over cipher text, for example, addition or multi-
plication, where FHE can support many operations computed over encrypted data.
Cryptographic schemes supporting single homomorphic operations have been around
since RSA was proposed in 1978 [12]. For some applications, only one operation is
required, and in these cases PHE is an ideal solution [13–16].
Homomorphic properties have also allowed the development of secure string
searching [17–23]. For large enterprises, it is sufficient to build and maintain search
indexes within the corporate environment and transmit them to the cloud for use. But
ordinary people who use the cloud to store personal documents would probably prefer
92 Data security in cloud computing

to delegate the task of building indexes and managing search to the service provider.
Current systems require the index to be downloaded, updated, and re-uploaded. More-
over, they do not support phrase or proximity searching, and at best are robust only to
simple (single-character) typographical and spelling errors. Little research has been
devoted to addressing these shortcomings.
Applications requiring multiple operations must therefore use FHE. FHE was
only proven plausible by Gentry as late as 2009 [24], many years after PHE.
Wang et al. [25] showed performance results of a revised FHE scheme by Gentry
and Halevi [26] in 2015 for the recrypt function. Central processing unit (CPU) and
graphics processing unit (GPU) implementations took 17.8 and 1.32 s, respectively,
using a small dimension size of 2,048 [25]. A medium dimension size of 8,192 took
96.3 and 8.4 s for the same function [25].
Currently hardware implementations [27] of FHE schemes cannot give practical
processing times, so it will be difficult to make this technology usable in the real world.
Combined with the fact that quantum computing is making huge advancements [28,
29], having data protected by traditional encryption schemes (for example, Rivest
et al. [12], Diffie–Hellman [30], and elliptic curves [31]) may not be as feasible in
the future as it is today. Lattice-based encryption [24] could be a solution; however,
it will result in even larger key sizes than current impractical FHE schemes.

5.2.2 Distribution
Cloud providers distribute their services for features like lower latency, load-
balancing, and redundancy [32,33]. But rarely do they use distribution to provide
better security and data protection. Currently proposed distributed processing
schemes run parts of a program on different servers, so that none have a full pic-
ture on what is being processed. These, however, do not fully protect data privacy as
values are in plain text while being processed on each server.
For example, one technique currently used is to distribute columns of tables in a
database over many servers [34]. Then in the event of a server being compromised,
only some of the data is lost. Another example is MultiParty Computation (MPC) [35],
where multiple parties securely compute a function over some secret input [36–39].
Each server has its own private inputs into the function, but these often are in plain
text. Other limitations of MPC include that only one server can be corrupted for
correctness and the encrypted circuits can require large network transfers.
Some PHE schemes have threshold variants which allow decryption to be split
across many servers [40] and have primarily been used for voting schemes [13,16,41].
This provides extra protection to the decryption key, as each server only possesses a
part of it. Now if a server is compromised, no relevant data is lost. However if more
servers are compromised, and additional parts of the decryption key are leaked, the
easier it becomes for a malicious entity to break the key. Sections 5.3 and 5.4 follow
this idea where data is distributed such that if some servers are compromised, it is still
computationally difficult to get any real data. Choosing servers and cloud services
to host this distributed data now becomes very important. There needs to be a range
 Distributing encoded data for private processing in the cloud 93

of cloud service providers to prevent insider attacks, and a range of underlying soft-
wares such as operating systems to protect against a zero-day-attack compromising
all servers.
To explain this idea further, distributing data is the act of splitting up some piece
of information into smaller pieces. For example when complete, a puzzle is an image.
But when broken up it can be hard to tell what the image should be. If we save each
piece of information to a different location, then figuring out what the final image is
from one piece is difficult.

If we turn off the lights, the puzzle becomes even more difficult because the image
gives us no information to help solve the puzzle. This is equivalent to distributing
some information which has been encoded using a known algorithm (in this case, the
puzzle cutter). Without all the pieces we can’t decode the information, even though
we know the algorithm used.

However by not knowing the algorithm used to encode the data, we have to try each
possibility to join the pieces together where only once we get the correct order will the
light turn back on. But the light may turn on for false positives, because it is possible
to decode something into completely the wrong thing while appearing to look correct.
94 Data security in cloud computing

This example puzzle has 20! = 2.432902008 × 1018 combinations. Even computing
a million combinations a second, it would still require thousands of years to generate
all possibilities. This gives distribution of the computationally intensive property that
is required for something to be considered as encryption. Therefore in this chapter,
the definition of secure encoding with distribution is equivalent to encryption.

5.2.3 Custom hardware processors

The state-of-the-art secure processor, AEGIS [42], was designed to reveal only the
data inside the processor. Therefore, any data leaving the processor is encrypted. This
protects against a range of software and physical attacks. But AEGIS still has secu-
rity vulnerabilities in the form of side-channel-attacks [43, 44]. This attack vector
analyses information ‘leaked’ from the physical execution of a program, for exam-
ple, power consumption [45] or electromagnetic radiation [46]. Other limitations
of secure processors are the practicality of deployment in the cloud. By definition,
the cloud should be flexible and adaptive, often viewed as abstracting services from
products [47], but by creating services reliant on custom hardware, we lose the core
essence of what the cloud should be. However for further security, secure processors
can enhance privacy-preserving computation schemes.

5.3 String searching

5.3.1 Overview
Privacy preserving string searching is the first scheme presented to verify the idea of
secure encoding with distribution. The scheme encodes documents and queries using
‘Bin Encoding’. This uses a lossy encoding technique – a simple trapdoor – that maps
characters individually to bins. There are several bins, and multiple characters map
to the same one. Hence the original string cannot be obtained from its encoding. For
example, here is a mapping with three bins A, B and C:
{a, b, c, d, e, f , g, h, i} ⇒ A
{j, k, l, m, n, o, p, q, r} ⇒ B
{s, t, u, v, w, x, y, z} ⇒ C
 Distributing encoded data for private processing in the cloud 95

Bob

Figure 5.1 Personal user system model for Bin Encoding

(This example is for illustration; in practice, we envisage many more bins for a
single index to reduce the number of false positives when searching.) Relative to this
mapping, the encoded values for hello and world areAABBB and CBBBA, respectively,
which can be obtained using Algorithm 1. Apart from world, another possibility for
CBBBA is slope (among others). However, these possibilities can only be generated by
someone who knows the bin mapping. Given the encoded value but not the mapping,
there are countless possibilities for CBBBA, such as hello (even though the above
bins map it to AABBB). The user’s data is protected by hiding in many possible bin
combinations (>1020 ).
Figure 5.1 shows a typical use case. Bob is saving a file in the cloud, and would
like it to be encrypted, while retaining the ability to search its contents at a later
date. Before transmitting the file, his device encodes it; the computational expense is
trivial. Bob separately encrypts the file using a secret key and sends both encrypted
and encoded versions to the cloud service. Filenames are encrypted, while smaller
documents can be padded. Note this example is not distributed, and this will be
introduced in Section 5.3.6.

Algorithm 1 Bin Encoding

1: function binEncode(string, binmap)

2: estring ← 
3: for i ← 0 to len(string) do
4: c ← lowercase(stringi )
5: if c in binmap then
6: estring ← estring + binmapc
7: return estring
96 Data security in cloud computing

5.3.2 Removing special characters

To harden Bin Encoding against language attacks, special characters such as space
must be removed because they reveal too much information. For example, if spaces
are visible, encoded words of length 1 will correspond with high probability to either
i or a (in the English language). If the space character is encoded, its bin will occur
unusually often. For example, a high-frequency letter like T occurs in English around
9% of the time [48], whereas space has a far greater frequency of 16%–30%, assuming
an average word length of 5. This may make it easy to detect which bin contains the
space character, leading again to the problem of single-letter words.

5.3.3 Approximate string searching

By encoding characters individually, approximate string searching can be supported.
Using the above mapping, hello encodes to AABBB. But hallo also encodes to AABBB,
so they would still match. Furthermore, if h and e were swapped, the encoded result
would remain the same. Of course, this is an unrealistically simplistic example, and
with more bins approximate searching will need to take into account how many bins
are different, or transposed.
Modern operating systems support built-in spell checking, which perhaps reduces
the importance of approximate string searching. However, this adds overhead to the
client, has a limited dictionary, and users are taxed by having to confirm corrections.
Thus it is advantageous for searching schemes to support approximate string matching.

5.3.4 False positives

Searching for a string over unencrypted data rarely returns false positives. However,
when both query and data are encrypted, a cloud service cannot determine how accu-
rate its results are. Lossy techniques such as Bin Encoding make it even harder to
prevent false positives, for not only does the service have no knowledge of the data
and query, but also it cannot be sure that two identical encoded values are actually
the same. Furthermore, approximate search increases the potential for false positives
if an exact match is not found. However, by looking for patterns, Bin Encoding still
produces accurate results, as will be shown in Section 5.3.7.

5.3.5 Building the search index

The scheme allows the index to be built by the cloud service, rather than the client. The
client need only encode the documents, which adds negligible overhead, and encrypt
them. This allows multiple devices to update documents at the same time. In contrast
with trapdoor searching, delegating index operations to the cloud service allows it
to implement more advanced search facilities and obtain more accurate document
rankings because the locations of query term hits are known.
Just how the index is built is left open, and the details are beyond the scope of this
chapter. Because the cloud has no knowledge of spaces, we recommend an n-gram
approach. For testing, we built the index using grams of the same size as the query,
 Distributing encoded data for private processing in the cloud 97

although in practice it is likely that fixed sized grams such as bigrams or trigrams
will be used.

5.3.6 Distributed index

This section thus far describes Bin Encoding with single nondistributed index. With a
single index, a larger number of bins will return more accurate results from encoded
queries, because more patterns are observed. However, having many bins (>13) opens
both index and queries to a wider range of attacks. In the extreme, 26 bins are simple to
attack because they are a one-to-one mapping between characters and bins (assuming
the alphabet is {A − Z}), enabling standard frequency and language attacks – although
removing spaces made these somewhat more difficult. Therefore in practice, the index
will be built using a smaller number of bins (<6) to harden it against such attacks.
Bin Encoding can be extended to store data in distributed ‘environments’ that
are isolated from one another in such a way that if one environment is compromised
by a malicious user, it will not be able to use the information or privileges gained
to compromise another environment. Figure 5.2 shows a distributed index model
containing four separate environments that isolate data. Three of these, B, C and
D, contain indexes to the same documents built using different bin mappings. By

Environment B:
- Index I
- No Map Info
- No Files

Environment A: Environment C:
- No Index - Index II
- Map for I,II&III - No Map Info
- Encrypted Files - No Files

Environment D:
- Index III
- No Map Info
Bob - No Files

Figure 5.2 Distributed index system model for Bin Encoding

98 Data security in cloud computing

Table 5.1 Exact matching in document using distributed indexes

Search query First result Second result Third result

internet internet (100%) interest (50%) intended (47%)

ethics ethics (100%) ethica (63%) rators (41%)
privacy privacy (100%) privile (31%) rposely (31%)
hackers archers (59%) – –
underwater waterreser (41%) underscore (34%) undationdi (33%)
sldnfs – – –

combining search results from each index, more accurate results can be returned. For
example if one index gives a match on part of the document but another does not
return the same match, this is likely to be a false positive.
Environment A in Figure 5.2 is responsible for distributing the query to the
indexes and for combining the results to return to the user. When the user sends
a query or edits a document, the number of bins for encoding can be large (e.g.
13). When Environment A receives encoded values, it uses a randomly generated
mapping, different for each user, to further encode the already encoded values for
each environment into a smaller number of bins. Although the user’s mapping is never
sent to the cloud, each index has a different mapping. Environment A also stores the
encrypted files received from the user (although they could be placed elsewhere).

5.3.7 Results for searching over a document

The document we used for these results was ‘Ethics and the Internet RFC1087’ [49].
The distributed index setup used 13 bins to send from the client to the distribution
server, before being converted into 3 indexes where each used 3 bins with different
mappings. All bin mappings were randomly generated at runtime. The primary ranking
used was the n-gram search function from the Python NGram library [50]. Results
are the size of the query, so some results are segments of words or even two parts of
a word because spaces are not known.
Table 5.1 contains six queries for a distributed index. The first three queries
exist in the document, and this is shown by the results giving 100% matches. The
remaining results (second and third) can vary depending on the bin mappings; however
if the query is not misspelled and the search term is in the document, a 100% match
always occurred in our testing. The bottom three queries are terms which are not
in the document, and hence do not get strong matches. These results justify using
distributed indices because they give similar results to a single index, but with more
security.
The results for a selection of incorrect queries are given in Table 5.2. These results
show that the cloud is still able to match a word/phase that the user could be meaning.
Note that the query priatcy returns promise as the higher result. With a different bin
mapping, privacy could be returned first. This is because approximate matching is
more challenging for Bin Encoding, even a single wrong character in the query can
 Distributing encoded data for private processing in the cloud 99

Table 5.2 Approximate matching in document using distributed indexes

Search query First result Second result Third result

internat internet (53%) interest (50%) interali (39%)

intranet internet (53%) integrit (39%) intercon (33%)
intrenet internet (61%) interest (39%) integrit (30%)
ethiks ethics (63%) ethica (39%) –
ehtics ethics (64%) icians (42%) ernets (41%)
priatcy promise (42%) privacy (38%) product (35%)
private privacy (46%) privile (42%) preadde (35%)

lead to varying results. However the important aspect is that privacy is returned to
the user and could allow for a quick filter on the client side to move it up the list.

5.3.8 Summary
Overall the distributed index provides better security than a single index and allows for
accurate results when using a small number of bins. Even if one server is compromised,
the index is still protected. This is because the lossy encoding is computationally
intense to reverse, similar to encryption.

5.4 Arbitrary computation

This section will extend the idea behind Bin Encoding (where encoding with distri-
bution is comparable to encryption) from approximate string searching to arbitrary
private computation like FHE. Instead of trying to build a FHE scheme which is
computationally intense to break on a single machine, we started with the distributed
model and tried to build a fully homomorphic scheme upon it. This shift has allowed a
more practical approach to be developed which solves the same problem that existing
FHE schemes target.

5.4.1 Overview
The FRIBs scheme has been designed to distribute each individual bit across many ser-
vice providers, while still allowing Negative-AND (NAND) operations to be computed.
We likened our proposed idea to the New Zealand terminology of ‘fribs’, which are
small pieces of unwanted wool removed after shearing. If we say a ‘bit’ is the woollen
fleece, then it cannot be recreated without all the fribs and wool. Distributing the bit
fragments can be seen as exporting the fribs and wool to different locations, known
as fragment servers. Once exported, the bit fragments can be processed securely by
building functions from NAND gates.
The fragmentation is similar to encoding into bins, but is lossless as accurate
results must be obtained. Therefore when the fribs are combined, the bit value can be
100 Data security in cloud computing

Table 5.3 Simple AND fragmentation

Value F0 F1

Low 0 0
Low 1 0
Low 0 1
High 1 1

Table 5.4 Fragmentation with many states

Value F0 F1

Low 0 0
Low 1 0
Low 0 1
Low 2 0
Low 0 2
Low 2 2
High 1 1
High 2 1
High 1 2

decoded. This follows the same principle of a threshold cryptosystem [40], which has
N entities, but only requires t entities to decrypt a value (where t < N ). Therefore if
t entities are compromised, then the encrypted data is no longer protected.
Given a value {0, 1} or {low, high}, the AND function is used to encode/fragment
the bit.3 An example is shown in Table 5.3 where a value is encoded into two fribs.
A potential problem with this example is that 50% of the fribs are 0. Assuming an
equal probability (50:50) between high and low bits before encoding, each servers
can solve ≈ 1/3 of the bit values (using the fact that one-half are low, and two-thirds
of the fribs are 0 for low values). Depending on requirements, this could be seen
as too much information leakage, even though complete values (for example, 32-bit
integers or 8-bit characters) are still unknown.
One technique to reduce the number of 0 fribs is to introduce more frib states.
Table 5.4 gives an example of three states for two servers, resulting in one-third of the
fribs equalling 0. The fragmentation used in Table 5.4 is F0 ∧ F1 , where the value 2
is low unless the other frib is high. Now each server can only solve ≈ 1/4 of the bit
values. However the easier solution is to increase the number of fribs, and only allow
one frib to be 0 for an encoding, as shown in Table 5.5. This results in only 1/(N + 1)

3
Note that in this chapter we will only use the AND operation for fragmentation and only use two states for
easier explanations and examples. Future work will demonstrate how FRIBs can be extended to support
varying fragmentation algorithms, providing even more security.
 Distributing encoded data for private processing in the cloud 101

Table 5.5 Fragmentation with only one server

receiving 0

Value F0 F1 F2 F3 F4

Low 0 1 1 1 1
Low 1 0 1 1 1
Low 1 1 0 1 1
Low 1 1 1 0 1
Low 1 1 1 1 0
High 1 1 1 1 1

fribs equalling 0, where N is the number of fribs, and a server only having knowledge
of 1/(2N ) of the bit values.

5.4.2 Distributed NAND gate

5.4.2.1 Operation
Now that the bits have been fragmented, we need to be able to compute basic opera-
tions over them such as addition and multiplication. Fragmenting values for either an
addition or multiplication is trivial. For example if we have two numbers, 12 and 10, we
can fragment them into (6, 6) and (8, 2), respectively. Adding the fragments together
gives (14, 8), which when joined together results in 22. Multiplication is similar,
with the fragments (3, 4) and (2, 5), multiplication gives (6, 20), outputting 120. The
challenge is being able to compute both operations on the same set of data.
To compute many types of operations while only implementing a single function,
a universal logic gate is used. FRIB implements a NAND gate, as they are preferred
over NOR gates in electrical applications [51]. Unlike the addition or multiplication
example, the result of a NAND function is dependent on the other fribs. Equation (5.1)
compares the Exclusive-OR (XOR) and NAND functions, where the NAND function
gives the wrong result. Therefore FRIBs maintain state so that when joining the fribs
together, the correct result is given.

F0 F1 Result F0 F1 Result
A 0 ⊕ 0 0 A 0  0 1
⊕ ⊕ ⊕    (5.1)
B 1 ⊕ 1 0 B 1  1 0
1 ⊕ 1 0 1  1 ?

5.4.2.2 Maintaining state

To keep the states of each operation we use a simple technique of concatenating each
frib together to be computed/reduced later. The first operation with both fribs of 1
will be concatenated to 11. If we continued concatenating, we would lose the order
102 Data security in cloud computing

of NAND operations, as demonstrated in (5.2) and (5.3) where the same frib values
give different results.

F0 F1 Result F0 F1 Result
A 11 ∧ 1 1 A 1111 ∧ 11 0
      (5.2)
B 11 ∧ 1 1 B 11 ∧ 1111 0
1111 ∧ 11 0 111111 ∧ 111111 1

F0 F1 Result F0 F1 Result
A 11 ∧ 11 0 A 111 ∧ 111 1
      (5.3)
B 1 ∧ 1 1 B 111 ∧ 111 1
111 ∧ 111 1 111111 ∧ 111111 0

Since anything NANDed with 0 results in 1, FRIBs uses 0 to maintain order. This
is why the fragmentation is currently done with the AND function, so that if a server
has a 0, it knows the bit value is low. Equations (5.4) and (5.5) give the same examples
as in (5.2) and (5.3), but now maintains order. Equation (5.4) now gives the right frib
value of 11011011 instead of 111111, which represents 11  (11  11). But the left
frib value of 110110011 has an extra 0, giving (11  11)  11 as the order is different
to the right side. The second example in (5.5) is more straightforward, as both sides
are the same.

F0 F1 Result F0 F1 Result
A 11 ∧ 1 1 A 11011 ∧ 11 0
      (5.4)
B 11 ∧ 1 1 B 11 ∧ 11011 0
11011 ∧ 11 0 110110011 ∧ 11011011 1

F0 F1 Result F0 F1 Result
A 11 ∧ 11 0 A 1101 ∧ 1101 1
      (5.5)
B 1 ∧ 1 1 B 1101 ∧ 1101 1
1101 ∧ 1101 1 1101001101 ∧ 1101001101 0

5.4.2.3 Reduction
Concatenating states will affect the size of the result states, as they will get larger
after each operation. Therefore at a predefined point, the states need to be reduced.
Reducing the size of a frib requires information about all fribs. A separate server,
known as the reduction server, is used where all N servers send their fribs to during
the reduction step. Once the server has received each frib for a given value, it uses
a lookup table to retrieve the reduced fribs for each server. However if each frib was
sent to and returned from the reduction server in the current format, then some of the
data can be decoded. The reduction servers have no knowledge of the program being
run over the data, meaning any bits they can decode may still be worthless.
 Distributing encoded data for private processing in the cloud 103

Since the reduction server is performing a simple lookup, we can obfuscate

each frib state to a unique value. For example, each server can hash the frib with a
server unique salt value, or use a random mapping. Now the reduction server cannot
know the state of the fribs it has received, but protecting the reduced fribs is slightly
more difficult. Instead of using a hash algorithm, we use public-key encryption on
each reduced frib, such that only the single server can decrypt the frib. The lookup
table is built offline and sent to the reduction server. Therefore the reduction server
only receives a protected lookup table, and all the reduced fribs are already encrypted.
Another security benefit given by this is that each public key for the individual servers
and their reduced fragments can remain private. To further improve privacy, multiple
reduction servers can be used where each one is used in a pseudo-random order.
With a maximum frib size of 32 bits, it produces >30,000 entries per server.
Using just two servers creates a very large multi-key lookup table. Reducing the frib
size to two sets of 16 bits for the lookup table gives <200 entries per server. This
makes implementation more practical as the lookup table is now of a feasible size.
With a maximum of <200 entries per server, each key only requires 8 bits, which can
be increased by a few bits for better hashing. Splitting a frib into two 16-bit values
must be done at the last operation. For example, 110110011011000110110011011
will become 110110011011 and 110110011011, allowing the same lookup table to
be used to get two obfuscated values. Another lookup table can then get the encrypted
values for each server using the two obfuscated values.
By using the same lookup table many times, we can increase the number of
operations before the fribs need to be reduced, if the fribs have the available space to
grow. Meaning that 110110011011 and 110110011011 can become four 16-bit values
110110011011, 110110011011, 110110011011 and 110110011011. Given that more
servers lead to larger lookup tables, the size of the keys may need to reduce even
further. Finding the balance between number of reductions and size of the fragments
is important for performance.

5.4.3 Addition
The addition of two 32-bit integers can be achieved with 31 full-adders and a single
half-adder. A full-adder comprised of NAND gates can be seen in Figure 5.3. To get the
best performance for our proposed scheme, we must reduce the number of network

N2 N6

Ai
N1 N4 N5 N8 Oi
Bi
N3 N7

Ci
N9 Ci+1

Figure 5.3 NAND gate full-adder

104 Data security in cloud computing

requests required by combining many reduction requests into a single request. First
we compute all values for N4 , which for worst-case, where both Ai and Bi are 1, gives
10111001101. The frib therefore can grow up to 10 bits during this step. We can then
combine all 32 fribs for N4 into a single network payload and send them to be reduced
to single bits.
How the carry bits are reduced can vary depending on implementation, however
we will allow the fragments to grow as large as needed for this step. If a limitation is
applied, more reduction requests will be needed. Because the first bit does not have
an input carry value, N9 input is N1 and N1 (equates to !N1 ). The other carry bits
involve gates N1 , N4 , N5 and N9 , where the result from N9 is connected to the next
bits N5 gate. Given that N4 will be a single bit, and that the worse case value for N1 is
11, each carry step will at most add 5 bits to the frib (11010). We only need a single 0
between each operation because we know the order is continuous. For example if the
carry output for the second bit is 1101011011, we know the order of operations is
(110(10(110(11)))).
This results in a worse-case frib size of 155 bits (16 × 10-bit values). We then
send these carry-bit fribs to be reduced, meaning we now have single bit values for
all N4 and N9 gates, allowing us to compute all N8 gates with a maximum frib size
of 10 bits again. This only totals three reduction requests.

5.4.4 Multiplication
Binary multiplication can be thought of as a series of AND operations, all added
together. Equation (5.6) shows an example of multiplying 5 and 11 on an 8-bit
machine. For each bit in 11, we AND it with each bit in 5, giving 8 values. Adding
each value together gives 55.
00000101
× 00001011
00000101
0000101
000000
00101 (5.6)
0000
000
00
+ 0
00110111
To make the additions more efficient, we add together the biggest and next biggest
values, then the next pairing, down to the smallest and second smallest. This is shown
in (5.7).
00000101 0000 000000 00
+ 0000101 + 000 + 00101 + 0 (5.7)
00001111 0000 001010 00
 Distributing encoded data for private processing in the cloud 105

We repeat this step in (5.8).

00001111 0000
+ 001010 + 00 (5.8)
00110111 0000
And the final addition gives us the result in (5.9).
00110111
+ 0000 (5.9)
00110111 ∴ = 00110111
This gives a total of seven addition operations for this example. But by adding similar
sized numbers together in parallel, we decrease the number of reduction steps required.
For (5.7), each addition can combine the reduction requests into one, meaning the
performance is close to that of a single addition. Therefore, the performance of this
example will be slightly above three additions. For 32-bit values, there are a total of
31 additions, but it performs like ≈ 5 additions.

5.4.5 Conditional
Supporting an operation to compare two values can dramatically affect the security of
a secure processing scheme. For example if a group of cipher values only encrypted
the set {0, 1}, then the ability to calculate if two cipher values are equal will result in
two subgroups of cipher values. Where one subgroup must contain either encrypt a 0
or 1, the other subgroup must encrypt the opposite. However because our proposed
scheme has the bits fragmented across many servers, all the servers must compute over
the same instruction set. This prevents a compromised server trying to compare all the
fribs it has, as the other fragment servers would need to be doing the same malicious
action. Therefore our scheme has the ability to support conditional operations, which
can be implemented to return the result in either a secure or nonsecure manner.
5.4.5.1 Secure results
Returning results securely means the result is a fragmented bit, where <1 frag-
ment server has knowledge of the result. This can make some programs difficult
to implement as the result of the comparison is not known. Two examples are given
in Algorithms 2 and 3, for an equal and greater than or equal if statement. For both
examples, we have to increment c without knowing the result of the comparison.
5.4.5.2 Nonsecure results
Instead of returning a fragmented bit, this approach returns the whole bit by using a
different lookup table than for a standard operation. This allows each server to know
the result of the conditional statement, making programs easier to design and in some
cases compute faster.

5.4.6 Proof-of-concept addition and multiplication

Because FRIBs relies heavily on reduction requests, the locations of the fragment and
reduction servers affect performance. This is something that needs to be considered
106 Data security in cloud computing

Algorithm 2 If equals example

1: if a = b then
2: c←c+1
3:
4: function ifEqual(a, b)
5: m←a−b
6: inout ← 0
7: carry ← 0
8: for i ← 0 to 32 do
9: tmp ← m[i] + inout + carry
10: inout ← tmp & 1
11: carry ← tmp >> 1
12: return !(inout | carry)
13: c ← c + (1 × ifEqual(a, b))

Algorithm 3 If greater than or equal example

1: if a >= b then
2: c←c+1
3:
4: function ifGreaterEqual(a, b)
5: sign_neq ← a[31] ˆ b[31]
6: c←a−b
7: return (!sign_neq & !c[31]) | (sign_neq & !a[31])
8: c ← c + (1 × ifGreaterEqual(a, b))

when choosing server locations, as the bandwidth between data centres varies. The
cloud service providers used for our experiment/evaluation were Amazon Web Ser-
vices, Microsoft Azure and Google Cloud Platform. All instances were running with
the cheapest tier option and based in the United States.
The server configuration was a single reduction server and two fragment servers.
The reduction server was in California with Amazon, a fragment server was also
in California but with Microsoft and the final fragment server was in Iowa hosted
by Google. We used a proof-of-concept addition algorithm with a 27-bit maximum
fragment size which required 9 reductions, and averaged the time for 100 addi-
tion operations with 32-bit unsigned integers. The latency at the time of testing was
3.106 ms for Azure–Amazon, and 37.414 ms for Google–Amazon.
Our results produced an average of 346 ms for each addition operation. This is
directly proportional to the largest latency time, where 37.414 × 9 ≈ 346 − (some
small computation times). Therefore if all the fragment servers could be within
10 ms round trip from the reduction server, then addition times could be 99.274 ms.
 Distributing encoded data for private processing in the cloud 107

The latency figures of Azure to Amazon could result in 37.228 ms. Allowing for a
larger fragment size would also increase the performance. For example, if only five
reductions are required for an addition, then we can nearly half the completion time.
Currently, multiplication is reliant on addition, and in Section 5.4.4 we showed that
for 32-bit integers, five addition steps are required. Therefore, we can look at the
addition results to solve for the multiplication results. These performance numbers
are much faster than FHE schemes described in Section 5.2.1 and show the potential
of distributing encoded data.

5.5 Security analysis

Given our threat model in Section 5.1, there are two main attack vectors we need to
evaluate against: decoding the data with one set of the distributed data and getting all
the data from each system.

5.5.1 One set of the distributed data

Successful attacks on traditional cryptography can often decrypt all the data [52,
53], but with distributed encoding each bit fragment or bin must be tried for each
possibility. For example, we have two fragment servers and the bit fragments (b0−7 )
for a byte known to be an ASCII value in the range of 32–122. Because we only know
≈ 1/4 of the bits, there are a number of possibilities for the value. If we know b1 and
b3 to be zero, then we have 24 possibilities, of which 14 are letters. If we increase
the number of fragment servers to four, then we might know only 1 bit. Setting only
b3 or b1 to zero gives 48 or 46 possibilities, respectively. Once we have hundreds of
ASCII fragments, forming sentences and paragraphs, the number of possibilities are
massive (14100 ≈ 4.1 × 10114 ). Therefore, privacy is preserved by the large amount
of computation time to generate and test all possibilities. Note, if an attacker manages
to break into more systems, then the number of possibilities will decrease as more
bits are known.
Bin Encoding is different as each distributed index has a small number of bins.
A malicious user knows that a character cannot exist in different bins; therefore, bin
patterns can be exploited. Given an encoded query of length 5, it is reasonable to
assume that it is a single word. Table 5.6 shows four possible queries, giving the
number of collisions for each word encoded with three bins. The words are encoded
into bins, where the mapping is the ASCII value modulo 3. We then encoded all
five-letter words from the dictionary [54] using the bin mapping, and test if they
match the encoded query value, giving the Same Mapping column in Table 5.6. The
Other Mappings column of Table 5.6 gives the collisions when the bin mapping is
not known. Note this is for a distributed index, so the same mapping collisions will
be much lower when the distributed results are combined.
Having a query length of 10 as shown in Table 5.7 gives similar results to
Table 5.6; however, the amount of possibilities drops quite significantly. This is
because with the longer query, the probability of a letter from a word encoding to
108 Data security in cloud computing

Table 5.6 Five-letter word queries

Word Same mapping Other mappings % Match in dictionary

hello 16 5,374 77.94%

world 80 5,407 79.34%
paper 20 4,963 72.05%
zoned 106 5,348 78.86%

Table 5.7 Ten-letter word queries

Word Same mapping Other mappings % Match in dictionary

blacksmith 1 1,994 16.79%

underwater 2 2,861 24.10%
helloworld 0 2,629 22.13%
purringcat 0 2,156 18.15%

Table 5.8 English letter frequencies [48]

A B C D E F G H I J K L M
7.61 1.54 3.11 3.95 12.62 2.34 1.95 5.51 7.34 0.15 0.65 4.11 2.54
N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z
7.11 7.65 2.03 0.10 6.15 6.50 9.33 2.72 0.99 1.89 0.19 1.72 0.09

different values increases. Looking at the bottom two entries in Table 5.7, helloworld
and purringcat, these are actually hello world and purring cat, respectively. Therefore
given an encoded string of two five-letter words, there are still words of length 10
which give a potential match.
Analysing the frequency of a bin occurring gives an estimation of the letters
mapped to it. For example, given the letter frequencies in Table 5.8 [48], if a bin occurs
at relatively small frequency, then it is more likely to contain letters that also have a
smaller frequency. This also gives a reduction in bin combinations for an malicious
user to try, because certain combinations do not fall within the estimated frequencies
calculated. Figure 5.4 shows the difference between the estimated frequency obtained
from counting bins in the index and the actual frequency of the letters in each bin.
These results show that with enough encoded documents indexed, it is possible to
predict within ±2.5% of the actual letter frequency. They also show that a smaller
number of bins for the index is harder to estimate. Figure 5.5 shows the distribution of
100 million unique random bins for a 3-bin configuration, giving a total of 300 million
bins, each containing 8–9 letters. The average summed frequency for a bin is around
33.3%, even though the English letter frequencies vary. Therefore when generating the
bin mapping, we can check if the bin frequencies are within the majority of all possible
 Distributing encoded data for private processing in the cloud 109

20
13 Bins
% of bins generated 15 3 Bins

10

0
–2.5 –2.0 –1.5 –1.0 –0.5 0.0 0.5 1.0 1.5 2.0 2.5
Frequency % difference

Figure 5.4 Difference in calculated and actual bin frequencies

3
% of bins

0
0 20 40 60 80 100
Sum of letter frequencies in a bin (%)

Figure 5.5 Letter frequencies in 300 million randomly generated bins

bins combinations. For example, using three bins the scheme might only accept bins
with frequencies between 20% and 46%. This means that even if a malicious user
knows the frequency of each bin to ±2.5%, it still gives over 20% of all possible bin
combinations. Note this experiment contained only bins of even size (8–9 letters),
where an implementation having a variation in the number of letters per bin would
have more possible bin combinations.
Given a Bin Encoded index, it is currently possible to rebuild the encoded version
of the document. However because there are no spaces, breaking the index with a
dictionary attack becomes harder than breaking the individual queries. Because FRIBs
does not expose character patterns, it is harder again, showing how computationally
difficult distributed encoding is to break with only one set of the data.

5.5.2 Breaking into all systems

Any service implementing our schemes is ultimately responsible for the security of
their own environment. Software patching, access polices, and firewall management
110 Data security in cloud computing

to name a few examples. However some exploits are out of a cloud services control,
for example, a zero-day vulnerability in their operating system. To reduce this risk, a
mixture of Linux and Microsoft servers can be used, such that any one vulnerability
cannot exploit every server. When a user/business is choosing the service providers,
they should also seek information regarding security measures in place. A common
approach is looking at a list of standards the service is compliant with.
International standards are now emerging for organisations using or providing
cloud services, with ISO/IEC 27018:2014 (with ISO/IEC 27002 as one of its norma-
tive references) being the first International code of practice that focuses on protection
of Personally Identifiable Information (PII) in the cloud. This increases the security of
their service, while providing more trust to their users. The cryptography recommen-
dations/requirements described in ISO/IEC 27018:2014 are the objectives specified
in clause 10 of ISO/IEC 27002. Examples are provided for use of cryptography in
the cloud, but at a minimum a cloud should implement controls for confidentiality
(data encrypted when stored or transmitted) and authentication. However there is no
mention of true secure processing like homomorphic encryption. To try and protect
data being processed, access controls are recommended. This makes it more difficult
for rogue employees or outside attackers to gain access to data in-flight. Therefore
by conforming with ISO/IEC 27018:2014 will reduce the chance of a breach, and
applying our scheme will enhance the security already provided.
End users also have control over their security, as the more distributed servers
used, the smaller the risk of their data being compromised. Ten servers will give more
security over five, but the running costs increase. Therefore evaluating against this
attack vector is implementation dependent. Bin Encoding and FRIBs can protect data
from rogue employees and malicious users who break into a few systems, but the
cloud service providers need to try protect the data they store as well.

5.6 Little computational and network overhead

With the growth of the Internet of Things (IoTs) and mobile devices, a low pow-
ered device needs to be able to support encrypting/protecting data. For example an
iPhone 5 has an A6 chip containing a 1.3 GHz dual-core processor, and an aver-
age Word document is estimated to be around 250 kBs [55]. Using Bin Encoding,
even if it takes 20 clock cycles to process one character, the device would still be
able to encode multiple documents per second. Also depending on the application,
it is possible to do the encoding in the real time, as the document is being edited.
FRIBs requires more clock cycles as it needs to choose a random fragmentation
for each bit, however can still encode multiple average-sized Word documents per
second. Therefore both Bin Encoding and FRIBs add little processing overhead to
the client. This is because encoding requires little computation, where traditional
encryption requires more complex computation by processing numbers which are
larger than the processors data-path width. Sample results are given in Figure 5.6 [16]
for encrypting a single vote (32-bit integer value) and generating a zero-knowledge
proof.
 Distributing encoded data for private processing in the cloud 111

80
Encryption
60 Proof
Time (s)

40

20

0
32 128 512 2048
Size of public key (bits)

Figure 5.6 Mobile voting performance on an iPhone 5 [16].

Networking overhead is just as important because mobile data can be expensive,

and the networking interface on a mobile device is one of the major consumers of
power [56]. Bin Encoding can be seen as a lossy compression scheme, which will add
less than half of the original file. Therefore in the worst case 50% more data needs to
be transferred, but the average case will require less than 35%. The amount of data
FRIBs add is directly proportional to the number of fragment servers. For example
with five fragment servers, each bit gets fragmented into 5 fribs. Compression can
be applied to each set of fribs, however in comparison with other homomorphic
encryption schemes, a factor of 5 is good as most schemes encrypt a bit into a value
within a large modulus.

5.7 Concluding remarks

With the simplicity offering superior performance and additional features, distributed
encoding for secure processing offers an exciting alternative to homomorphic encryp-
tion and traditional MPC with garbled circuits. Distribution allows Bin Encoding to
remove false positives in string searching without compromising security, and FRIBs
the ability to protect and process data. Future work aims to further improve the strength
of both schemes and provide more analysis on their security. Combining the schemes
is also an option for more advanced searching and returning accurate results quickly.
Bin Encoding can narrow the number of potential matches, before FRIBs performs
an accurate search.
These schemes provide secure functionality in a fraction of the time compared
to the holy grail of cryptography (i.e. FHE), reducing processing time from hours
to seconds. By allowing for varying performance and security, users can now take
control of their data in the cloud.
112 Data security in cloud computing

Acknowledgements
This research is supported by STRATUS (Security Technologies Returning Account-
ability, Trust and User-Centric Services in the Cloud) (https://stratus.org.nz), a science
investment project funded by the New Zealand Ministry of Business, Innovation and
Employment (MBIE).

References

[1] Fox-Brewster T. Yahoo: Hackers Stole Data On Another Billion Accounts;

2016. Online. http://www.forbes.com/sites/thomasbrewster/2016/12/14/
yahoo-admits-another-billion-user-accounts-were-leaked-in-2013 (Accessed
18/01/17).
[2] Chen A. GCreep: Google Engineer Stalked Teens, Spied on Chats;
2010. Online. http://gawker.com/5637234/gcreep-google-engineer-stalked-
teens-spied-on-chats (Accessed 16/01/17).
[3] Theoharidou M, Kokolakis S, Karyda M, Kiountouzis E. The insider threat to
information systems and the effectiveness of ISO17799. Computers & Security
2005;24(6):472–484.
[4] Giandomenico N, de Groot J. Insider vs. Outsider Data SecurityThreats: What’s
the Greater Risk? 2017. Online. https://digitalguardian.com/blog/insider-
outsider-data-security-threats (Accessed 10/03/17).
[5] Kaspersky Lab and B2B International. Global IT Security Risks Survey;
2015. Online. https://media.kaspersky.com/en/business-security/it-security-
risks-survey-2015.pdf (Accessed 16/6/17).
[6] Will MA, Ko RK, Witten IH. Bin Encoding: A user-centric secure full-tet
searching scheme for the cloud. In: Trustcom/BigDataSE/ISPA, 2015 IEEE.
vol. 1. Helsinki, Finland, IEEE; 2015, pp. 563–570.
[7] Will MA, Ko RK, Witten IH. Privacy preserving computation by fragment-
ing individual bits and distributing gates. In: Trustcom/BigDataSE/ISPA, 2016
IEEE. vol. 1. Tianjin, China, IEEE; 2016, pp. 900–908.
[8] Amazon Web Services, Inc. Online. https://aws.amazon.com (Accessed
07/04/16).
[9] Microsoft Azure. Online. https://azure.microsoft.com (Accessed 07/04/16).
[10] Swain M. Needlework of Mary Queen of Scots. Crowood; 2013.
[11] Kerckhoffs A. La cryptographie militaire. Librairie militaire de L. Baudoin;
1883.
[12] Rivest RL, Shamir A, Adleman L. A method for obtaining digital signatures and
public-key cryptosystems. Communications of the ACM 1978;21: 120–126.
[13] Hirt M, Sako K. Efficient receipt-free voting based on homomorphic encryp-
tion. In: Advances in Cryptology – EUROCRYPT 2000. Bruges, Belgium:
Springer; 2000, pp. 539–556.
[14] Popa RA, Redfield C, Zeldovich N, Balakrishnan H. CryptDB: Protect-
ing confidentiality with encrypted query processing. In: Proceedings of the
 Distributing encoded data for private processing in the cloud 113

Twenty-Third ACM Symposium on Operating Systems Principles. Cascais,

Portugal: ACM; 2011, pp. 85–100.
[15] Boneh D, Gentry C, Halevi S, Wang F, Wu DJ. Private database queries using
somewhat homomorphic encryption. In: Applied Cryptography and Network
Security. Banff, AB, Canada: Springer; 2013, pp. 102–118.
[16] Will MA, Nicholson B, Tiehuis M, Ko RK. Secure voting in the cloud using
homomorphic encryption and mobile agents. In: 2015 International Confer-
ence on Cloud Computing Research and Innovation (ICCCRI). Singapore:
IEEE; 2015, pp. 173–184.
[17] Boneh D, Di Crescenzo G, Ostrovsky R, Persiano G. Public key encryption
with keyword search. In: Advances in Cryptology – Eurocrypt 2004. Interlaken,
Switzerland: Springer; 2004, pp. 506–522.
[18] Hwang YH, Lee PJ. Public key encryption with conjunctive keyword search
and its extension to a multi-user system. In: Pairing-Based Cryptography –
Pairing 2007. Tokya, Japan: Springer; 2007, pp. 2–22.
[19] Baek J, Safavi-Naini R, Susilo W. Public key encryption with keyword search
revisited. In: Computational Science and Its Applications – ICCSA 2008.
Perugia, Italy: Springer; 2008, pp. 1249–1259.
[20] Li J, Wang Q, Wang C, Cao N, Ren K, Lou W. Fuzzy keyword search over
encrypted data in cloud computing. In: Proceedings of the 29th Conference
on Information Communications. San Diego, CA, USA: IEEE Press; 2010,
pp. 441–445.
[21] Wang C, Cao N, Li J, Ren K, Lou W. Secure ranked keyword search
over encrypted cloud data. In: Distributed Computing Systems (ICDCS),
2010 IEEE 30th International Conference on. Genoa, Italy: IEEE; 2010,
pp. 253–262.
[22] Li M, Yu S, Cao N, Lou W. Authorized private keyword search over encrypted
data in cloud computing. In: Distributed Computing Systems (ICDCS), 2011
31st International Conference on. Minneapolis, MN, USA: IEEE; 2011,
pp. 383–392.
[23] Wang J, Ma H, Tang Q et al. Efficient verifiable fuzzy keyword search
over encrypted data in cloud computing. Computer Science and Information
Systems 2013;10(2):667–684.
[24] Gentry C. Fully homomorphic encryption using ideal lattices. In: Proc. STOC.
vol. 9; Bethesda, MD, USA; 2009, pp. 169–178.
[25] Wang W, Hu Y, Chen L, Huang X, Sunar B. Exploring the feasibility of
fully homomorphic encryption. Computers, IEEE Transactions on 2015;64(3):
698–706.
[26] Gentry C, Halevi S. Implementing Gentry’s fully-homomorphic encryption
scheme. In: Advances in Cryptology – EUROCRYPT 2011. Tallinn, Estonia:
Springer; 2011, pp. 129–148.
[27] Cao X, Moore C, O’Neill M, Hanley N, O’Sullivan E. High-speed fully homo-
morphic encryption over the integers. In: Financial Cryptography and Data
Security. Christ Church, Barbados: Springer; 2014, pp. 169–180.
[28] Hirvensalo M. Quantum Computing. Springer; 2001.
114 Data security in cloud computing

[29] Barz S, Kashefi E, Broadbent A, Fitzsimons JF, Zeilinger A, Walther P. Demon-

stration of blind quantum computing. Science 2012;335(6066):303–308.
[30] Diffie W, Hellman ME. New directions in cryptography. Information Theory,
IEEE Transactions on 1976;22(6):644–654.
[31] Hankerson D, Menezes AJ, Vanstone S. Guide to Elliptic Curve Cryptography.
Springer Science & Business Media; 2006.
[32] Greenberg A, Hamilton J, Maltz DA, Patel P. The cost of a cloud: Research
problems in data center networks. ACM SIGCOMM Computer Communication
Review 2008;39(1):68–73.
[33] Xu G, Pang J, Fu X. A load balancing model based on cloud partitioning for
the public cloud. Tsinghua Science and Technology 2013;18(1):34–39.
[34] Ganapathy V, Thomas D, Feder T, Garcia-Molina H, Motwani R. Distributing
data for secure database services. In: Proceedings of the 4th InternationalWork-
shop on Privacy and Anonymity in the Information Society. Uppsala, Sweden:
ACM; 2011, p. 8.
[35] Yao ACC. How to generate and exchange secrets. In: Foundations of Computer
Science, 1986., 27th Annual Symposium on. IEEE; 1986, pp. 162–167.
[36] Clifton C, Kantarcioglu M, Vaidya J, Lin X, Zhu MY. Tools for privacy
preserving distributed data mining. ACM Sigkdd Explorations Newsletter
2002;4(2):28–34.
[37] LindellY, Pinkas B. Secure multiparty computation for privacy-preserving data
mining. Journal of Privacy and Confidentiality 2009;1(1):5.
[38] Gennaro R, Gentry C, Parno B. Non-interactive verifiable computing: Out-
sourcing computation to untrusted workers. In: Annual Cryptology Conference.
Santa Barbara, CA, USA: Springer; 2010, pp. 465–482.
[39] Schoenmakers B, Veeningen M, de Vreede N. Trinocchio: Privacy-preserving
outsourcing by distributed verifiable computation. In: International Confer-
ence on Applied Cryptography and Network Security. Guildford, UK: Springer;
2016, pp. 346–366.
[40] Cramer R, Damgård I, Nielsen JB. Multiparty computation from thresh-
old homomorphic encryption. In: Advances in Cryptology—EUROCRYPT
2001: International Conference on the Theory and Application of Crypto-
graphic Techniques Innsbruck, Austria, May 6–10, 2001 Proceedings. Berlin,
Heidelberg: Springer; 2001, pp. 280–300.
[41] Adida B. Helios: Web-based open-audit voting. In: USENIX Security Sympo-
sium. vol. 17; San Jose, CA, USA; 2008, pp. 335–348.
[42] Suh GE, O’Donnell CW, Devadas S. AEGIS: A Single-Chip Secure Processor.
Information Security Technical Report. 2005;10(2):63–73.
[43] Yang B, Wu K, Karri R. Scan based side channel attack on dedicated hardware
implementations of data encryption standard. In: International Test Con-
ference, 2004. Proceedings. ITC 2004. Charlotte, NC, USA: IEEE; 2004,
pp. 339–344.
[44] Köpf B, Basin D. An information-theoretic model for adaptive side-channel
attacks. In: Proceedings of the 14th ACM conference on Computer and
Communications Security. Alexandria, VA, USA: ACM; 2007, pp. 286–296.
 Distributing encoded data for private processing in the cloud 115

[45] Kocher P, Jaffe J, Jun B. Differential power analysis. In: Advances in Cryp-
tology – CRYPTO’99. Santa Barbara, California, USA: Springer; 1999,
pp. 388–397.
[46] Gandolfi K, Mourtel C, Olivier F. Electromagnetic analysis: Concrete results.
In: Cryptographic Hardware and Embedded Systems – CHES 2001. Paris,
France: Springer; 2001, pp. 251–261.
[47] Ko RK. Cloud computing in plain English. ACM Crossroads 2010;16(3):5–6.
[48] Solso RL, King JF. Frequency and versatility of letters in the English language.
Behavior Research Methods & Instrumentation 1976;8(3):283–286.
[49] Board IA. Ethics and the Internet; 1989. Online. https://www.ietf.org/rfc/
rfc1087.txt (Accessed 04/12/14).
[50] Python NGram 3.3 Documentation. Online. https://pythonhosted.org/ngram/
(Accessed 04/02/15).
[51] Streetman BG, Banerjee S. Solid State Electronic Devices, vol. 5.
Prentice Hall, New Jersey; 2000. Online. http://trove.nla.gov.au/work/
8960772?selectedversion=NBD22063993.
[52] Boneh D. Twenty years of attacks on the RSA cryptosystem. Notices of the
AMS 1999;46(2):203–213.
[53] Zhang Y, Juels A, Reiter MK, Ristenpart T. Cross-VM side channels and their
use to extract private keys. In: Proceedings of the 2012 ACM Conference on
Computer and Communications Security. Raleigh, NC, USA: ACM; 2012,
pp. 305–316.
[54] 109582 English words; 1991. Online. http://www-01.sil.org/linguistics/
wordlists/english/wordlist/wordsEn.txt (Accessed 04/12/14).
[55] FAST Search Server 2010 for SharePoint;. Online. http://technet.microsoft.
com/en-us/library/gg604780.aspx (Accessed 07/01/15).
[56] Pering T, Agarwal Y, Gupta R, Want R. Coolspots: Reducing the power
consumption of wireless mobile devices with multiple radio interfaces. In: Pro-
ceedings of the 4th International Conference on Mobile Systems, Applications
and Services. Uppsala, Sweden: ACM; 2006, pp. 220–232.
This page intentionally left blank
 Chapter 6
Data protection and mobility management
for cloud
Dat Dang1 , Doan Hoang1 , and Priyadarsi Nanda1

Abstract
Cloud computing has become an alternative IT infrastructure where users, infrastruc-
ture providers, and service providers all share and deploy resources for their business
processes and applications. In order to deliver cloud services cost effectively, users’
data is stored in a cloud where applications are able to perform requests from clients
efficiently. As data is transferred to the cloud, data owners are concerned about the
loss of control of their data and cloud service providers (CSPs) are concerned about
their ability to protect data when it is moved about both within and out of its own
environment. Many security and protection mechanisms have been proposed to pro-
tect cloud data by employing various policies, encryption techniques, and monitoring
and auditing approaches. However, data is still exposed to potential disclosures and
attacks if it is moved and located at another cloud where there is no equivalent security
measure at visited sites.
In a realistic cloud scenario with hierarchical service chain, the handling of
data in a cloud can be delegated by a CSP to a subprovider or another. However,
CSPs do not often deploy the same protection schemes. Movement of user’s data is an
important issue in cloud, and it has to be addressed to ensure the data is protected in an
integrated manner regardless of its location in the environment. The user is concerned
whether its data is located in locations covered by the service level agreement, and
data operations are protected from unauthorized users. When user’s data is moved to
data centers located at locations different from its home, it is necessary to keep track of
its locations and data operations. This chapter discusses data protection and mobility
management issues in cloud environment and in particular the implementation of a
trust-oriented data protection framework.

Keyword
Data mobility, data protection, cloud mobility, data location

1
University of Technology Sydney, School of Computing and Communications, Australia
118 Data security in cloud computing

6.1 Introduction
Cloud computing has been introduced as a new computing paradigm deployed in many
application areas ranging from entertainment to business. It offers an effective solution
for provisioning services on demand over the Internet by virtue of its capability of
pooling and virtualizing computing resources dynamically. Clients can leverage cloud
to store their documents online, share their information, consume, or operate their
services with simple usage, fast access, and low cost on a remote server rather than
physically local resources [1]. In order to deploy cloud services cost effectively, users’
data is stored in a cloud where applications are able to perform requests from clients
efficiently. As data is transferred to the cloud, data owners are concerned about the
loss of control of their data, and cloud service providers (CSPs) are concerned about
their ability to protect data effectively when it is moved about both within and out
of its own environment. CSPs have provided security mechanisms to deal with data
protection issues by employing various policy and encryption approaches; however,
data is still exposed to potential disclosures and attacks if it is moved and located
at another cloud where there is no equivalent security measure at visited sites [2].
Consequently, data mobility issues have to be addressed in any data security models
for cloud.
In a realistic cloud scenario with hierarchical service chains, handling of data in a
cloud can be delegated by a provider to a subprovider to another. However, CSPs do not
often deploy the same protection schemes [2]. Movement of user’s data is an important
issue in cloud and it has to be addressed to ensure the data is protected in an integrated
manner regardless of its location in the environment. When user’s data is moved to
data centers located at locations different from its home, it is necessary to keep track
of its locations. This requirement should be taken care of by a user-provider service
level agreement (SLA). The reporting service can be achieved through an agreement
that enables a monitoring service from the original cloud. When a violation against the
established SLA occurs, the monitoring component will be able to detect it through
the corresponding CSP and trigger protection services on the original cloud, which
can immediately analyze and audit the data. Moreover, data locations need to be
maintained at the original cloud and encoded within the data itself, in case it loses the
connection with its monitoring service. Under such circumstances, the location data
can be used subsequently to trace previous locations and data operations or trigger
original mobility services (MSs) if data is moved back to its original cloud. For the
users, they are concerned whether their data is located in locations covered by the
SLA, and data operations are protected from unauthorized users. Mechanisms should
be available to report information concerning the data, such as the data location, data
operation, or violation, to their owner if and when necessary.
Protecting data in the outsourced cloud requires more than just encryption [3]
which merely provides data confidentiality, antitampering, and antidisclosure. The
key to mitigate users’ concern and promote a broader adoption of cloud computing is
the establishment of a trustworthy relationship between CSPs and users. For users to
trust the CSPs, users’ data firstly should be protected with confidentiality maintained,
and no one should be able to disclose data-sensitive information except the authorized
 Data protection and mobility management for cloud 119

users. Second, any actions or behaviors on the data should be enforced and recorded
as the attestation to avoid false accusation to data violation. Once the breach against
the SLAs subscribed between CSPs and users occurs, the attestation can be used
as a proof that the CSPs violate the agreed-upon service level and, consequently,
appropriate compensation may be offered to the users. Finally, the data should be able
to preserve itself independently in a heterogeneous cloud environment with diverse
protection frameworks.
This chapter discusses the above concerns from a novel perspective, offering a
data mobility management (DMM) model with enhanced transparency and security.
In this model, an active data framework that includes a location data structure and a
location registration database (LRD) to deal with mobility; protocols between clouds
for data movement are examined; procedures for establishing a clone supervisor at a
visited cloud for monitoring purposes are investigated; and a MS to handle requests
for moving the data among clouds is deployed. The data mobility model focuses on
two aspects: DMM and active protection. The DMM deals with physical location
changes of user’s data in various cloud environments and ensures these locations be
registered with the LRD and recorded within the data structure itself. The destination
of a move operation is also verified to ensure that the new physical location is within
the preestablished SLA. The active protection aspect deals with extending data pro-
tection when the data is moved to various locations. The active data unit [referred to
as an active data cube (ADCu)] with a new location-recordable structure allows the
data itself to keep record of data operations, their request parameters, and locations.
Furthermore, the LRD is also used to store changes of data location and other informa-
tion allowing data owners to track their data if necessary. The protocols are designed
to deal with data movement from one cloud to another. The process of moving data
involves a verification process and a MS at the original cloud. A clone supervisor is
established at the visited cloud with the same capability as the original supervisor for
monitoring operations on the data. The MS queries LRD to register the location of
the data when it is first generated and update its location when it is moved to a new
location. The chapter presents a comprehensive analysis of data mobility scenarios
in various cloud environments. It presents the design and the implementation of the
proposed DMM model as well as the evaluation of the implemented model.
The rest of the chapter is organized as follows. Section 6.2 discusses data mobility
scenarios, components, and a framework for mobility in cloud. Section 6.3 reviews
security mechanisms for data-in-transit. Section 6.4 presents the design, implemen-
tation, and evaluation of a trust-oriented data protection and mobility management
model. The conclusion is in the Section 6.5.

6.2 Data mobility

Even with the trusted-oriented data protection framework [4], the data is still exposed
to potential violations when it is moved to new cloud hosts where there are no equiv-
alent security measures to protect it. Data mobility is still a challenge for exchanging
120 Data security in cloud computing

Table 6.1 Terms and description of components in the data mobility model

Terms Descriptions

Original cloud Providing cloud resources and verification procedure

Old cloud An original cloud or a visited cloud offering cloud resources
New cloud Creating a request to move the data with appropriate parameters
Visited cloud A new cloud or an old cloud which stores, forwards data verification
requests for permissions
Supervisor Protecting its associated data, data locations, and the communication
among clouds

information among CSPs because of the lack of models to ensure data protection and
data auditing.
Clearly, mobility management is one of the most important challenges in mobile
IP [5]. When a mobile is roaming away from its home network, it registers its current
location to its home agent on home network. Similarly, when a data unit moves from
its original cloud, similar mechanisms should be provided for the data to inform its
original cloud its current locations and/or the data owner its status if necessary. The
data itself, however, cannot execute these actions. For cloud data mobility, we leverage
the ideas from mobile network about location register for a mobile by using a LRD
located at original cloud for updating or retrieving data locations, and a recordable data
structure for recording cloud host location in the data itself when there is a data request
operation. Moving data to a new cloud environment, however, has to involve both the
data and its supervisor (in cellular networks only the mobile phone is involved). In
this model, a clone supervisor is established for monitoring the moved data and data
operations. A verification procedure will process data requests at the original cloud
for access permissions; however, the mobility management model may also delegate
the verification and access control to the visited cloud. With the deployment of the
supervisor, data protection can be achieved despite the fact that data is located at
visited cloud side.

6.2.1 Components of a data mobility model

We define functions of parties involved in the mobility management model in
Table 6.1:
● Data verification: The supervisor monitors data operations either at the original
cloud or at the visited cloud. Data only accepts instructions from its supervisor. For
monitoring function, the supervisor focuses mainly on detecting user’s operations
at the operating system level such as move, copy, and delete. When the supervisor
detects such a request, it would activate theTriggerable Data File Structure (TDFS)
through instructions to execute the runtime environment analysis and inspect the
validity of data operations. In the proposed active data model, data operations
will be verified at the shell which wraps the data in an executable status.
 Data protection and mobility management for cloud 121

1 Request moving TDFS

S
DF
2 Request to establish new supervisor Original cloud

gT
New cloud

vin
3 Inform message for establishing new supervisor

mo
est
4 Move the TDFS

qu
Re
1
TDFS

Figure 6.1 General establishing supervisor procedure

● Data location management: The supervisor also reports timely data locations to
the original cloud as well as updating the LRD as data itself cannot send location
information to original cloud, but it is able to record current location for tracing
operations. It analyzes networking location in order to obtain the current network
address and send back to original cloud, which is set as default source address in
the report message.

6.2.2 Data mobility scenarios

It is assumed that the new cloud and the original cloud agree to establish a new
supervisor at the new site. As the verification is processed at the original side, the
new clone supervisor is used for dealing with data-moving cases among clouds. In
this chapter, a TDFS [6] is used as data objects move among clouds. The structure is
used to embed raw user’s data before storing in the cloud. Details of the TDFS and
the trust-oriented data protection Framework will be presented in Section 6.4. Data
mobility in a cloud environment involves several cases.
In the first case, data is moved from an original cloud to a new cloud (the request
may be originated from the original cloud or from the new cloud). In both scenarios,
a general procedure (Figure 6.1) has to be executed between the two clouds before
moving the data. The procedure is as follows:
After analyzing the request, the original cloud sends a request to the new cloud
for establishing a new supervisor at the new cloud. This request is then verified by the
visited cloud for the permission to install a new service. At this time, the new cloud
also verifies the request to evaluate wherever it can or cannot create the service. If
there is an agreement between two clouds to create the new supervisor, a confirmed
message will be sent from the new cloud to the original cloud.
Following the first step, information pertaining to the supervisor and the TDFS
including the type of services, the template of the supervisor, and the original location
will be sent to the new cloud for creating a new instance of the supervisor.
After the supervisor is created, the TDFS will be moved to new cloud.
122 Data security in cloud computing

The new supervisor will be responsible for monitoring the TDFS at the new cloud
as well as communicating with the original cloud as the new cloud does not provide
the same data protection services.
If the request originated from an entity in the original cloud, the destination
address of the new cloud where data is moved to has to be provided with the request.
When the destination address is identified, the original cloud can communicate
with the new cloud. In both scenarios, security procedures are performed by the
access control component, the Cloud-based Privacy-aware Role Based Access Control
(CPRBAC), and the auditing component, the Active Auditing Control (AAC) together
with the associated supervisor. Having satisfied with the conditions for moving the
requested data, the original cloud sends a request in order to establish the clone super-
visor at the new cloud. By doing this, the link between the supervisor and its data is
still kept when data is stored at another location. Details of the procedure (Figure 6.2)
are as follows:
The service request from the new cloud or from within the original cloud is
sent to the original cloud. This request is authorized by the access control and the
auditing control components of the original cloud. If it is a valid request having correct
required parameters, the supervisor is triggered to analyze data operations. As it is
a “move” request, the supervisor has to communicate with mobility component for
establishing a clone supervisor at the new cloud. Invalid requests against predefined
policies will be triggered by the data protection unit (APDu) and captured by the
auditing component. Violation triggers in the auditing may also be triggered to assist
the security administrator to execute some certain security prevention operations.
The mobility component at the original cloud sends a request to the visited cloud
for the permission to install a new service. The new cloud also verifies and evaluates
the request to see if it can create the service. If an agreement is in place to create a
new supervisor between two clouds, a confirmed message will be sent from the new
cloud to the original cloud. At this step, necessary information for creating the clone
supervisor will be supplied to the new cloud. Once the new supervisor is created, the
mobility component invokes instructions to move the data. Hence, the new location
of TDFS is also updated at LRD.
In the second case, data at an old cloud is moved to a new cloud and original cloud
will process request verifications. The procedure is similar but the verification request
needs to be forwarded from the old cloud to the original cloud for authorization.
After analyzing the request, the original cloud sends a request to the new cloud for
establishing a new supervisor at the new cloud. Once, the new service is established,
the original cloud will inform the old cloud to move TDFS. Otherwise, original cloud
will invoke a message for old cloud to terminate the request. Figure 6.3 depicts
procedures of the second data-moving case.
In the third case, data at an old cloud is moved back to the original cloud; and
in the last case, data at a cloud is moved to local storage (offline) with or without
permissions. Therefore, the procedure for establishing supervisor is not performed at
this stage, but the moving request has to be authorized at original cloud in order to
approve for the permission.
 isor ’s information
supervisor or send superv
3a. Request to establish new Mobility
ervisor management
3b. Inform message for establishing new sup component

Data protection and mobility management for cloud

TDFS

1a. M
ove T Trusted security
DFS
management
2a. Verify component

itor
New cloud 1a. Req
2c. Establish supervisor

Mon
uest mo request
ving

ing
Cloud CPRAC
est mov
interface
r
ge Supervisor
Trig
.
2b
1b. Requ

AAC

Original cloud

Figure 6.2 Details of establishing supervisor procedure

123
124 Data security in cloud computing

r
iso Original 2. R
uperv e
mov quest t
hs cloud ing o
is perm verify
abl
est issio
n
es t to Old cloud
equ for isor 4. In
a. R
ge
ssa per
v mov form m
ess

FS e
3 me w su eT

TD mov
m e
termin DFS o age to Supervisor
for ing n ate r

t to
I n reque
3b. ablish

ues
New st
t

Req
es 1a. Request moving TDFS
cloud

1b.
TDFS
5. Move TDFS

Figure 6.3 General procedure in establishing supervisor from old cloud to new
cloud

ing
r 1. Request to verify mov
v iso Original permission to new clou
d
super cloud
ish
abl

FS
st e TD FS or
oe sage to mov

TD
est
t 3. Inform mes
est
equ

ess
requ
R for isor term inate
2a. ge

Acc
v
e ssa super
m w
r m n e
fo ing
New . In Local disk
2b ablish
cloud est 4. Move TDFS

Figure 6.4 Details of processing moving request from old cloud to original cloud

For the last case, the regular verification procedure is still executed at the original
to obtain the move permission. However, an exception will be raised when the original
cloud detects a data move without a request or it cannot communicate with destina-
tion address provided in the request to establish supervisor. In this case, the current
supervisor has to report the current TDFS location to the original cloud for updating
the LRD as well as triggering the data to update this address in its core component
before moving. From this point, the TDFS has to record data access locations in its
location list whenever users access the data even in the offline mode. The moving
operation occurs when TDFS is stored at the original cloud or at visited cloud. Figure
6.4 depicts procedures of the last moving case.

6.3 Security mechanisms for data-in-transit

Researchers have proposed various mechanisms to enhance data mobility and protect
sensitive data in distributed cloud environments, which includes geographic location-
based mechanisms, data-mobility-based policy and encryption mechanisms, binding
user and data location, protecting cloud data using trusted third-party technologies,
 Data protection and mobility management for cloud 125

and data mobility based on location register database. In this section, we will present
a review of these solutions for data mobility and data protection.

6.3.1 Geographic location-based mechanisms

The geographic location of data in cloud has raised user’s concern about the confi-
dentiality and privacy as the host cloud often stores user’s data at some cloud storage,
which may be owned by another cloud. Albeshri et al. [7] proposed a new approach,
GeoProof as a protocol, for geographic location assurance via a proof of storage proto-
col and a distance-bounding protocol. It allows data owners verifying cloud locations
where data is stored without relying on the word of the cloud provider. Benson et al.
[8] introduced a theoretical framework for verifying the proofs of retrievability and on
provable data possession and data geolocation. Cloud users can verify that a cloud stor-
age provider replicates the data in diverse geolocation. Peterson et al. [9] introduced
a new technique for sovereignty with a data possession protocol that binds network
geolocation query responses with proof of data possession using a MAC-based PDP
(MAC-PDP) as the interrogated server. Ries et al. [10] focused on verifying geo-
graphic data location in a cloud environment, detecting node movements and proving
data possession for data moving among CSPs. These efforts mainly relied on the
assumption of linear relationship about network latency and distance among clouds.
However, in realistic network environments, this relationship is not valid. Further-
more, verifying the integrity and confidentiality of the data relies on third parties
to retrieve the information from the origin of the data, and this raises an additional
source of concern.

6.3.2 Data-mobility-based policy and encryption mechanisms

In policy-based approaches, cloud policies are generally translated from natural lan-
guage polices which define the usage constraints of the corresponding data. For
the cryptographic-based scheme, data is encrypted to ensure the confidentiality and
integrity of outsourced data. Betge-Brezetz et al. [11] proposed a privacy control
model at the virtual machines (VMs) level to protect sensitive files stored, processed,
and moved in an Infrastructure as a Service cloud. The demonstration involved clouds
located in different countries but run on the same platform running on Linux operat-
ing system. The model requires CSPs to build the same cloud platform and establish
the same privacy control modules in order to protect the data moving among clouds.
Overhead is also an issue at this VM control level. Noman and Adams [12] introduced
the Data Location Assurance Solution (DLAS) for cloud computing environments by
applying two cryptographic primitives: zero knowledge sets protocol and ciphertext-
policy-attribute-based encryption scheme. This approach allows users to register their
data at a stable cloud location (e.g. country, region) and to verify data location on
request as the assurance of user’s data but not focus on the solutions for moving
data among clouds. Androulaki et al. [13] proposed a new framework focusing on
location- and time-based access control to cloud-stored data. In this framework, the
cloud provider stores the data reliably, whereas localization infrastructure is deployed
for accessing user location. More recently, References [14–16] focused on designing
126 Data security in cloud computing

a cloud information accountability framework to keep data usage transparent and

traceable through embedding of enforceable access control policies and logging poli-
cies. One of the main features of their work was that the data owner can audit the
copies of its data.
The cryptographic-based solutions may include encryption [17–19], verifica-
tion of integrity [20–22], secure file or storage system [23,24], and dispersal storage
schemes [25,26]. Policy-based mechanisms mainly focus on the provisioning of access
privilege for the requests. If the adversary has sufficient hacking skills or leverages
elevation of privilege to bypass the access control service, the data is still in dan-
ger. Encryption-based mechanisms impose on some constraints. For examples, the
complexity of key distribution and data encryption and decryption may be introduced,
especially while protecting the highly dynamic data. These approaches mainly focused
on protecting data by using encryption schemes, but there were few efforts on data
mobility.

6.3.3 Binding user and data location

Data-policy binding mechanism is a novel data protection scheme which encapsulates
data, policy, and functional entities within its encapsulating object. The integrity of
the data structure is enhanced. Any accesses on the data will enforceably activate the
bundled security procedure. Chen and Hoang [27] proposed an active data binding
framework in addressing data mobility and user mobility. This research concentrated
on notifying data owners when their data is moved from one location to another, track-
ing data geographic location using Google services and integrating active data-centric
framework to collect evidences of data movement. However, the lack of secured com-
ponents or equivalent protection schemes at the new location results in data violation
and illegal disclosure as there is no monitoring services to track the data and pre-
vent illegal requests. Consequently, data cannot be independently survived in the
heterogeneous cloud environment. Another representative research proposed in [28]
introduced sticky policies which are inseparable from the associated data to enforce
confidentiality protection. This technology prevents attackers from accessing data
without satisfying the bundled privacy policies. Two approaches were introduced: (1)
identifier-based encryption and (2) trusted platform module.
A similar data protection scheme [29] was proposed on the basis of secure data
capsules. The sensitive data is cryptographically bundled with the data-use controls
(DUCs) policy and provenance. They claimed that the DUCs might cover confiden-
tiality, integrity, nonrepudiation, logging, access control, etc. However, there was
no practical outcome demonstrated. References [30–32] proposed an active bundle
scheme to protect disseminated sensitive data. Each bundle packages data and meta-
data concerning data access and dissemination policies. Through relevance a VM
with each bundle, the data can be protected by enforcement of the privacy policies in
the VM. Popa et al. [33] proposed a data traceability service for mobile computing
application. A security framework for this service includes security components that
ensure integrity, authenticity, confidentiality, and nonrepudiation and management
components that apply the appropriate security components to users’ private data.
 Data protection and mobility management for cloud 127

The users can create a request to read, modify, or even transfer the data via mobile
applications. When a request was raised, a message from a trace service will notify
the data owner that his/her private data was accessed. This approach only considers
the case that the data is accessed by the data owner, and there is no data movement
among clouds. Especially, a request to send data is simply performed by creating a
copy of the data. In other words, the data sent by user will not be traced by the service.

6.3.4 Protecting cloud data using trusted third-party technologies

Trusted third party technology enables establishing trustworthy service relationships.
References [34–36] introduced trust computing concepts for cloud data security
through trusted third-party management systems. These schemes can efficiently
increase the transparency of data usage and ensure their data is not being compro-
mised or leaked by CSPs. However, merely relying on third-party auditors (TPAs)
may still disclose vulnerability once the adversary penetrates data storage service and
obtains direct access privilege on data. These proposed solutions lack in protective
ability on data. To cast off the constraints, data per se has to be smart to self-defend
without the assistance of TPAs.

6.3.5 Data mobility based on location register database

Location register database enables subscribing and storing data locations when data is
located at cloud storage. Leveraging database for data registration is a new approach
to deal with changes of data location in a cloud environment. Thus, there is limited
research on this scenario. Reference [12] used database for data registration and
user verifications to provide DLAS at cloud. Nevertheless, data is held at the cloud to
inform users that it is protected in a secure environment, and there are no data-moving
operations among clouds.
However, all the above approaches have not addressed the security requirements
to protect data from violation attacks when data is located at visited cloud sites. Our
work, described below, is different from theirs on several aspects. First, the DMM
model leverages our active data protection framework [6] in developing protocols for
moving data among clouds and in establishing a new supervisor at a visited cloud for
monitoring data and data operations at the new cloud as well as reporting the welfare
of the data to the original cloud. Second, data is rendered active with recordable
structure enabling data to store various locations when data is accessed. Third, a
location register database structure is introduced to allow MSs to retrieve and inform
data location. The model allows data to move among clouds of different infrastructures
ranging from private cloud to public cloud while ensuring its protection regardless of
the location.

6.4 A trust-oriented data protection framework

In this section, we introduce our active data mobility and protection framework
[4,37].
128 Data security in cloud computing

Cloud data can be classified as structured or unstructured data in terms of man-

agement type. The term structured data refers to data with an identifiable structure.
The most common instance of the structured data is the database system, where
data is stored based on predefined features and properties and is also searchable by
data type with access interfaces. On the other hand, unstructured data normally has
no identifiable structure that refers to any data type. Media data, documents, and
complex designated data formats like the Electronic Health Record are considered
unstructured data.
To protect these various data types in the outsourced cloud environment, struc-
tured data management typically interfaces with data by using secure connection
interfaces. Unstructured data strongly relies on third-party security mechanisms or
encryption. Once third-party services are compromised, unstructured data would be
vulnerable to violation and tampering. We concentrate on protection mechanisms for
unstructured data.
Instead of paying attention to attacks or violations, we focus on the target data and
equip it with self-describing and self-defending capability. We introduce an ADCu
structure as a deployable data protection unit encapsulating sensitive data, network-
ing, data manipulation, and security verification functions within a coherent data
structure. A signed ADCu encloses dynamic information-flow tracking mechanisms
that can precisely monitor the inner data and its derivatives. Any violations of policy
or tampering with data would be compulsorily recorded and reported to data owners
via the notification mechanisms within ADCu. This strong enforcement also triggers
a log information collection procedure (which records every access to the specific
data items) that will be utilized to provide transparency and accountability of data
usage via disseminating the log information to data owners.
A unit of raw data is transformed into a novel data structure called a TDFS that
is also referred to as an ADCu. The TDFS consists of a shell and a core as shown in
Figure 6.5. The shell is equipped with active tamper-proofing codes and is executed
prior to the core when the TDFS is triggered. It consists of a shell and a core. The shell
is equipped with active tamper-proofing codes and is executed prior to the core when
the ADCu is triggered. The ADCu is associated with a runtime environment. The core
of the TDFS comprises an executable segment (ES), a header, and data blocks. The
runnable scripts in the ES allow basic data operations, data loading, and data analysis
functions. The header refers to a manifest specifying the basic information related to
the data such as security header, data descriptor, and time stamp. Raw data blocks are
encrypted.
At the entry point to the shell, the scripts invoke verifier and identifier to certify
the validity of the request in terms of the format of request parameters and con-
tents via request identification and verification processes. In our context, a permitted
access request conforming to the configured policy is issued a certification that sig-
nifies that the access is authorized by the CPRBAC service which was proposed in
our previous work [38]. Another significant component of the shell is the logger
module, utilized to record significant checkpoints during transactions, data opera-
tion outcomes, and even errors when the ADCu throws exceptions. The logger is
required to record significant intermediate information. During a single transaction,
all log records marked with regular Priority level are stored temporarily in memory
 Data protection and mobility management for cloud 129

Shell Core
Verifier & Identifier
Executable segment
Logger
Header
Probe
Data blocks
Communicator

Figure 6.5 Structure of an active data cube

for performance consideration. Once the data operation finishes, the logger leverages
the communicator in the shell to upload the log records to ADCu’s external supervisor.
However, a log record marked with an emergency tag will be immediately triggered
by the probe, which then notifies the communicator to raise an exception. Time Stamp
uses the Network Time Protocol to take into account the fact that cloud resources may
be distributed across different time zones. Each ADCu’s log information is transpar-
ent to its data owner. When the log records are stored in cloud, they are encrypted
using the RSA encryption to avoid possible information leakage. Only the data owner
has the corresponding key to disclose those records. In addition, sending out the
log information of data usage rather than storing it inside the ADCu is activated to
maintaining the light-weight feature. Increasing log information could raise the cost
of storage, dissemination, or replication of the ADCu.
Each ADCu has a corresponding supervisor deployed in the same domain, which
takes charge of monitoring external data operations (such as move and copy) that
cannot be detected by the internal probe inside the ADCu, and communicating with
its ADCu. If the ADCu cannot establish a proper network connection or cannot contact
its supervisor, it would switch to the termination state to avoid an offline attack.
Once the verification and identification procedure succeeds, the shell delegates
control to the data core. The core of ADCu is wrapped by an ES, a header, and
data blocks. We leverage dynamic delegation approach in the ES to call back the
shell to trigger the core and execute data operations. The header refers to a manifest
specifying the basic information of supplementary data residing at the beginning of
data blocks.
As the ADCu can only protect and manage the contents within, it cannot be
triggered if adversaries attempt to execute operations such as move or delete the
whole data cube. The supervisor thus is designed to monitor operational system level
data manipulations that cannot be detected by the ADCu itself. An atomic data security
model, called the active data protection unit (ADPu), is needed for supporting the
active protection functions of the ADCu within the protection framework. The APDu
is an atomic component combining two entities: a supervisor and an ADCu.

6.4.1 Mobility management model

In this section, we present the design of our DMM model. The mobility management
model enhances the mobility of ADCus and its protection when deploying in cloud
130 Data security in cloud computing

environment. It supports the management of data and data locations as well as ensures
protection data at different clouds. The model is designed to achieve the following
objectives:

● Verification, authentication, and authorization: requests are verified with defined

policies to access the resources. The fine-grained policy structure allows users to
configure and define more specific and secure protection requirements on their
data. Furthermore, these requests are also audited and recorded as audit data in
which evidence of data violation will be reported to data owner.
● Mobility service: In order to deal with the changes of data location, the MS is
introduced to execute users’ requests for updating, tracking data locations at LRD,
and informing data owners with data operations and new locations. This addresses
users’ concerns when allocating their data within cloud services.
● Location register: When data is moved to a new cloud environment, it has to
nominate its presence at the new cloud to obtain cloud services within SLAs
established at its original cloud. In addition, with the introduction of the LRD,
locations of data are also collected and maintained in order to serve for tracking,
retrieving, and monitoring data status.
● Data monitoring: Data operations on the data monitored by a supervisor at original
cloud or a clone supervisor at visited cloud prevent data violations against the
SLAs subscribed between CSPs and users. The supervisor detects these operations
and triggers its TDFS into an active state ready for executing the self-protection
process.
● Data protection: The data is structured within an active protection structure that
enables it to be monitored, triggers smart analysis, self-protection, and self-
defense capability directly upon external requests. The active structure also allows
the recording of data operations with itself for tracing purposes.

We focus on providing a data mobility solution for cloud data moving among clouds
while ensuring data protection, auditing relevant data locations and accessed data
operations. The new features of our proposed model include an active data framework
with appropriate data structure and a LRD to deal with mobility; protocols between
clouds for data movement; procedures for establishing a clone supervisor at the visited
cloud for data protection purposes. In particular, there will be a MS agent responsible
for updating and retrieving data location from the LRD. Figure 6.6 depicts the model
and its four core components: (1) the data core protection component, (2) the mobility
management component, (3) the trusted security management component, and (4) the
cloud interface.

● The data core protection component: This component is designed to enable active
surveillance, smart analysis, self-protection, and self-defense capabilities directly
on to the data itself. The data is transformed and encapsulated in a TDFS that sup-
ports confidentiality, integrity, and intrusion tolerance [6]. To support mobility, a
special encrypted element namely recordable mobility data (RMD) is designed to
record user’s operations when they access the data. Only the data owner who has
 Data protection and mobility management for cloud 131

Mobility management component

Trust security
management
component Mobility Location
service register
Cloud privacy- database
aware role
Cloud -based access
interface control Data core protection component
Supervisor

Shell

Active
TDFS Header Header
auditing
Data blocks Data blocks
control
Core
Same working domain

Figure 6.6 The design of data mobility management model

the decryption key can trace previous data operations. The management and coor-
dination of cloud data for each tenant is processed by the supervisor, whose active
service instance is activated when the corresponding tenant subscribes to a cloud
storage service. Several supervisor service instances can be deployed to deal with
a large number of requests from diverse virtual servers or machines (VMs). An
atomic APDu contains an active data cube (the TDFS) and its supervisor.
● The mobility management component: This component includes the MS and the
LRD. It aims to store and manage information about the supervisor and the TDFS
at original cloud. The component centers around the location registration proce-
dure when the TDFS is moved by maintaining connections with its responsible
supervisor.

The MS is responsible for creating queries to the LRD. When the data is created, the
supervisor invokes the MS to update the information about the TDFS in the LRD. In
addition, the MS also supports the establishment of the new supervisor at the visited
cloud.
The LRD stores the TDFS information related to data location, data operations,
and data owner for data-status-monitoring purposes. The visitor location register
database (VLRD) is located at the visited cloud and structured similar as LRD with
some additional fields presenting for the location of visited cloud. When a TDFS
is subscribed to a cloud, it needs to register and is allocated a supervisor that is
responsible for the data welfare including monitoring and raising an alarm if illegal
data operations are detected. Therefore, whenever a TDFS moves out of its original
cloud, the supervisor will invoke a query to extract information from the database
necessary for the establishment of the clone supervisor at the new cloud. Apart from
132 Data security in cloud computing

the data, there are also tables holding system data, including information about servers
that are allowed to connect to the system. In the design phase, we designed database
tables to achieve following functions:
New data subscription: This function allows users to subscribe information about
their data such as data owner and profile data.
Updating changes of location: This function supports the location update proce-
dure when there are requests from the MS to update data locations. Despite the fact
that data is stored at a visited cloud, its location is still updated if there are requests
to move the data to a new cloud.
Retrieving VLRD lists: This function allows the LRD to locate the VLRD that
holds the current location information of the TDFS so that the location management
can be utilized.
Providing system data: This function allows the MS to access system data infor-
mation about LRD and VLRD. As a result, the CSPs are able to identify cloud hosts
and the location register database.
For TDFS location registration at a visited cloud, the VLRD is used for storing
TDFS locations when the TDFS moves from its original cloud to a visited cloud. The
VLRD is the other location register used to retrieve information about data location
when data is stored at the visited cloud. Because a TDFS can be moved anywhere in
clouds of different infrastructures, mobility management is very essential. When a
TDFS moves about, location registration for tracking and tracing purposes is always
needed. Therefore, if visited locations of TDFS are stored and managed as a dis-
tributed database system, the MS at visited cloud can query directly the VLRD rather
than the home LRD.
When a request to access the data at the visited cloud is permitted, the MS will
insert or update the VLRD. If the TDFS location is not stored in the VLRD, the request
is forwarded to original cloud where the MS queries the LRD. When it is authorized,
a new record will be added to the VLRD. When a TDFS visits a new cloud from
the old cloud, the registration process in the new VLRD is as follows: (1) the MS
sends a request to the new visited cloud in order to register its information in the new
VLRD; (2) the new VLRD informs the MS’s LRD of the TDFS’s current location,
the address of the new cloud; (3) the MS’s LRD sends an acknowledgment including
TDFS’s profile; (4) the new VLRD informs the TDFS of the successful registration;
and (5) the LRD sends a deregistration message to the old VLRD and the old VLRD
acknowledges the deregistration.

● The trusted security management component: This component is for executing

trusted security management. The CPRBAC service [39] is proposed to define and
describe the security boundary on data operations in distributed clouds. Access
resource requests that are not specified in the policy database will be rejected.
The fine-grained policy structure of the CPRBAC allows users to configure and
define specific and secure protection requirements on their data. Authentication
and authorization are offered by the service. TheAAC [38] is introduced to execute
and audit users’ requests in a secure and consistent manner. Users’ requests must
be actively audited under a distributed transaction management session. Through
 Data protection and mobility management for cloud 133

Trust-oriented data protection framework

Data core protection Data security control Data operation and

management
Active data-centric Cloud access
Cloud privacy-aware
(ADC) framework role-based access interfaces
control
Supervisor Mobility management
Active data
ADC network
(I) information Data replica
registry management

Triggerable data file

Active auditing ADC (I)
structure (TDFS)

Confidentiality Authentication Accountability

integrity authorization availability
intrusion tolerance auditability scalability

Figure 6.7 Trust-oriented data protection solution in cloud

recording audit data created as the attestations, the CSPs can report the evidences
of data violations to their users. The users are more inclined to adopt the cloud
solution for their businesses as they can establish more acceptable SLA with their
subscribed CSPs in a firmed trustworthy relationship. The auditability can be
achieved by the AAC.
● Cloud interface: Cloud interfaces provide data service interfaces to access active
data in cloud storage systems. It forwards requests with parameters to security
management component to verify access permission.

6.4.2 Trust-oriented data protection framework

In an earlier work, we proposed a trust-oriented data protection framework for data
protection in cloud environments [6]. Figure 6.7 illustrates the proposed trust-oriented
cloud data protection framework. The framework is structured into three blocks:
the data security control block provides secure access control and data auditabil-
ity functions, the data core protection block provides techniques and procedures for
implementing active data protection, and the data operation and management block
handles mobility and data replication management. This framework can be considered
a secure data container that manipulates and verifies the data without the involvement
of a third-party service. This structure presents a security and trust abstraction at a
higher level than conventional data protection models that rely on the peripheral secu-
rity environment and third-party protection mechanisms. Our core goal is to empower
data with the capabilities of self-defense and self-protection against intrusions or vio-
lations. Data misbehavior and violation can be actively detected by the data itself,
134 Data security in cloud computing

Verifier and identifier Executable segment

Logger
Probe Data header

Data blocks
Recordable mobility data

Figure 6.8 Triggerable data structure

Subject Data Data Source Current Destination

Time stamp
ID ID operation address address address

Figure 6.9 Recordable mobility data structure

reducing the risk of use by adversaries. The data core protection block employs an
active security approach whereby the data is made active against any invocation,
whereas the data security control block and data operation and management block
support this active approach by providing data auditing and other measures including
secure access control, data replication and mobility.
The management and coordination of cloud data for each tenant are processed
by the supervisor, an active service instance that is activated when the corresponding
tenant subscribes to cloud storage services.
In this framework, two services are proposed for data security control: the
CPRBAC service and the AAC service. The CPRBAC service defines and describes
the security boundary on data operations in cloud. Resource requests that are not
allowed in the policy repository will be rejected. The AAC is introduced to execute
and audit users’ requests in a secure and consistent manner. Users’ requests must be
actively audited under a distributed transaction management session.

6.4.3 Implementation
6.4.3.1 Data structure design
Data is structured utilizing the active data-centric framework [6]. A special structure
called recordable mobility data (RMD) is designed to record information associated
with users’ access request. The information includes Subject_ID, Data_ID, Operation,
Time Stamp, and Cloud location. This information is transparent to its data owner.
In other words, it is invisible from users’ data operation. The stored information is
encrypted using the RSA encryption to avoid possible information leakage. Only the
data owner has the corresponding key to disclose them for tracing previous operations.
The new TDFS structure is shown in Figures 6.8 and 6.9.
 Data protection and mobility management for cloud 135

TDFS
TDFS_ID varchar(10)
Description varchar(30)
File_size numeric(10, 2)
Data OwnerUser_ID integer(10)
SupervisorSupervisor_ID integer(10)

Data Owner
Supervisor User_ID integer(10)
Supervisor_ID integer(10) Username varchar(20)
Description varchar(30) Password varchar(20)
Role integer(10)

Location Registration
Id integer(10)
Address varchar(20)
TimeStamp date
Operation varchar(10)
TDFSTDFS_ID varchar(10)

Figure 6.10 Location register database design

6.4.3.2 Location register database design

The design phase had two tasks to complete, the first was to implement the design
of basic entities in the LRD’s schema and the second included the design of database
tables. When a TDFS registers with the LRD, information associated with the TDFS is
stored in the location registration table. For implementation, we only present structure
of the location registration table in the LRD. The primary keys of supervisor and
data owner appears in this table for completeness. A new record, which composes
of six fields including TDFS_ID, Supervisor_ID, Operation, Address, Time Stamp,
and Data Owner, is inserted into the LRD as initial data location for the TDFS.
Whenever a TDFS moves out of its original cloud, the supervisor will invoke the MS
which will execute a query to extract information from the database necessary for
the establishment of the clone supervisor at the new cloud. TDFS locations at the
database are updated at the LRD to allow verifying and tracking of data (Figure 6.10).
We assume that the LRD manages n TDFSs. The set of TDFSs in the LRD
is defined as TN = {tn1 , tn2 , …, tni , …, tnn }; the set of associated supervisors is
represented by SP = {sp1 , sp2 , …, spi , …, spn }, and the set of data operations on
TDFSs at time t is represented by OP = {op1 , op2 , …, opi , …, opm }. Similarly, the set
of address frequencies, the set of registered time stamps, and the set of data owners
are represented by IP = {ip1 , ip2 , …, ipi , …, ipn }, TS = {ts1 , ts2 , …, tsi , …, tsn }, and
OW = {ow1 , ow2 , …, owi , …, own }, respectively. Let LRD table set L = {tni , spi , ipi ,
opi , tsi , owi } (Table 6.2).
Regarding the registration of TDFS’s locations, a VLRD is used for storing a
TDFS location when the TDFS moves from its home location in the original cloud.
Because a TDFS can be moved anywhere in clouds of different infrastructures, mobil-
ity management is essential. When a TDFS moves, location registration is always
136 Data security in cloud computing

Table 6.2 LRD’s data table structure

TDFS_ID Supervisor_ID Operation Address Time stamp Data owner

tn1 sp1 op1 ip1 ts1 ow1

tn2 sp2 op2 ip2 ts2 ow2
… … … … … …
tni spi opi ipi tsi owi
… … … … … …
tnn spn opn ipn tsn own

Table 6.3 VLRD’s data table structure

TDFS_ID Supervisor_ID Operation Source Current Time Data

address address stamp owner

tn1 sp1 op1 ip1 cip1 ts1 ow1

tn2 sp2 op2 ip2 cip2 ts2 ow2
… … … … … … …
tni spi opi ipi cipi tsi owi
… … … … … … …
tnn spn opn ipn cipn tsn own

needed for tracking and tracing purposes. Therefore, if visited locations of TDFS
are stored and managed as a distributed database system, the MS at visited cloud
queries directly the VLRD rather than the LRD at the original cloud. A record in
the VLRD composes of seven fields including TDFS_ID, Supervisor_ID, Operation,
Source Address, Current Address, Time Stamp, Data Owner. VLRD’s data structure
inherits from LRD with an additional field as Current address. Current address A set
of CIP = {cip1 , cip2 , …, cipi , …, cipn } and VLRD table set L = {tni , spi , ipi , cipi , opi ,
tsi , owi }.
6.4.3.3 Data mobility management workflows
When a customer subscribes to a cloud service, the CSP will assign roles associated
with the data for users, allowing them to access a virtual user directory and workspace.
An initial set of empty active data cubes will be created according to the regular data
types. After assigning roles, the supervisor will be invoked to send a request to the
MS for data location registration. The request containing parameter such as UserID,
DataID, Location, and Time Stamp will be processed to update to the database. Finally,
the user will receive a data location registration acknowledgment message via the MS.
Figure 6.11 shows the workflow for a new data location registration.
When a user needs to execute data operations such as read, insert, write, and
move the data, he/she will send a request to the cloud interface including a set of
parameters such as UserID, DataId, Operation and Location, and Time Stamp. In
 Data protection and mobility management for cloud 137

The request Supervisor LRD

A user
will be used sends request to
subscribes to
to assign register data
cloud service
roles for user location

1 Cloud 2 3 Mobility
CPRBAC
service Supervisor service
service
Interface service

Data is
registered
User is informed timely about data 5 at location
database

Figure 6.11 New data location registration workflow

Verification
process at Verification Mobility
A user service in
original service
requests data original cloud
Verifying cloud side
operations
through the request 4
cloud service at cloud side
Cloud 2 3
1 Verify Supervisor
service
request service LRD
Interface
5
Recording
Notifying user 6 data
location TDFS

Figure 6.12 Data mobility workflow

turn, a verification process is created to perform a sequence of steps. First, it invokes

the supervisor to access the data. Hence, the supervisor needs to establish the validity
of the request by forwarding it to the original cloud where data location is also updated.
If the request is not valid or allowed by the access policy, the supervisor will raise
an alarm to notify the system administrator or related legislation organization. In
fact, if desired, the data owner may be informed immediately when the original cloud
detects the violation through the MS. If the request is permitted, the MS will update
data location before approved verification is sent to the supervisor. From this point,
data operations will be performed on the TDFS but each operation is recorded inside
the TDFS for tracing purposes. Figure 6.12 presents the general procedure for data
mobility workflow.
When the MS is triggered, a request is sent to LRD in order to query data location
for data validation or updating new data location. Further, the MS also informs the
data owner with a message concerning the accessed operations via email or mobile
devices. Details of the workflow are shown in Figure 6.13.
138 Data security in cloud computing

Query data
location
Data location
operator LRD
2

A request
Update
of data
VLRD
location
4
3
1
Mobility Upload data Visitor
service location location
database

5 Location 6
message
service

User is informed
data locations

Figure 6.13 Mobility service workflow

6.4.4 Evaluation and results

6.4.4.1 Experiment setup
We performed our experiments deploying Amazon EC, Azure, and NeCTAR clouds.
Our experimental environment has been set up as follows: Amazon EC2 [40] was used
as the original cloud to provide cloud resources and verify requests. We created one
t2.micro instance of Windows 2012 server running on Intel Xeon E5-2670 v2 2.5 GHz
with 1 GB memory and another instance running MySQL to store the LRD with 5 GB
storage. Packages of the model were deployed on this instance, and requests were
accessed via the RMI interface. We also created an Azure cloud [41] and a NeCTAR
cloud [42] as the visited clouds. We used an instance running Windows Server 2012
Datacenter with Intel Xeon E5-2660 2.2 GHz 2.19 GHz and 7 GB at Azure and
another instance running Ubuntu 14.04 within 1 VCPU, 4 GB RAM at NeCTAR
to send requests via the RMI interface. In order to demonstrate the working of the
mobility model, a message application for notification at users’ mobile phone was
implemented in Java on an Android 4.4 smartphone with Quad-Core 3GB 2.7 GHz
and 3GB RAM. Google cloud message (GCM) [43] was devised to send messages
informing users when the data was accessed or moved at cloud side. A notification
could be triggered via two sources depending on the request of data operations. If
the request was to move or to copy data, the MS would inform the data owner via
GCM, whereas operations such as read or write would be triggered by the probe inside
the data.
 Data protection and mobility management for cloud 139

The current experiments were based on following assumptions: we assumed that

the runtime environment Java Virtual Machine (JVM) of the active data behaved cor-
rectly at participant clouds, and we assumed that the data would be activated when
it moves to a new cloud host. We also assumed that a safe location service provider
(LSP) was available on the Internet, and CSPs had the agreement to establish new
supervisors. At this stage, we tested our model on cases where TDFS and regular files
were moved between two clouds. Next, different clouds (with different infrastruc-
tures) involving in data-moving cases were also used to demonstrate that the model
is trustworthy and behave correctly. To observe the performance of the DMM model,
we first compared data operation overheads in moving regular passive data and in
moving our active data. We also compared the overheads of two types of request: one
came from inside the cloud and the other from outside, to evaluate the feasibility and
proactivity of the system. Finally, we demonstrated security and transparency of the
proposed model.

6.4.4.2 Evaluation
In our previous ADC framework, a data-moving operation was simply performed
between two hosts in the private cloud environment. One host is to create a request
to move the data, whereas to the other is to provide various data access scenarios to
ADCu in the same cloud. In this section, we deploy various data-moving cases among
clouds to address not only data mobility issues but also privacy and security. Requests
will be created from both inside and outside the original cloud. Through authorization
and authentication scheme based on the CPRBAC service and the LRD at the original
cloud, any data-moving operations will be verified regarding user’s permissions or
data locations. The implementation of TDFS is based to our previous work [4] and
added new fields to support data mobility.
We assume that data owners do not release sensitive information to unauthorized
parties including secret keys that were used to generate signature and encrypt data
and personal privacy. We assume that the LRD and CPRBAC services are trustworthy
and behave correctly.

6.4.4.3 Processing data-moving case tests

Data-moving test for ADCu and normal files
We investigate a new data mobility model for ADCu by performing tests to identify
the cost of moving data such as time delay on TDFS files compared to normal data.
Normal files are the raw files in formats such as PDF file, XML file, or DOC file.
The idea is to determine the overhead introduced by the security features and the
MS performed on an ADCu of our model. We increased the file size from 300kB to
1000kB for both TDFS and normal files and compare the costs of moving operations
within our model. The results are shown in Table 6.3. All results are an average of five
trials. The executed time tRequest for each request is composed of three determinants:
the verification time tLookup service , the location register time tVerification and mobility , and
the data operation time tData operation
tRequest = tLookup service + tVerification and mobility + tData operation
140 Data security in cloud computing

Processing time (ms)

1,000 t TDFS Lookup service

800 t TDFS Verification and

mobility service
600 t TDF moving
400 t normal file lookup
service
200 t normal file verification
and mobility service
0
300 400 500 600 700 800 900 1,000 File size (kB)

Figure 6.14 Modules processing duration

Processing time (ms)

2,500
2,000
1,500
1,000
500
0 File size (kB)
300 400 500 600 700 800 900 1,000
t TDFS processing time t normal file processing time

Figure 6.15 Request processing duration

1) tLookup service is the time that client spent looking up server’s RMI interface and
sends the request.
2) tVerification and mobility is the security and MS latency. The CPRBAC and Location
register will be processed during this period.
3) tData operation is the data transfer time between the original cloud and the visited
cloud.
From the results, it is clear that the processing time for a TDFS is slightly longer
than that for a normal file (1765.25 ms in comparison with 1755.4 ms of the latter).
The main components of the whole moving process are the lookup service time and
the moving data time. The verification and MS time, the main process of the model,
however, only constitutes a small amount of time (353.93 of 1765.25 ms for TDFS
and 351.98 of 1755.4 ms for normal file, respectively). The comparative results are
illustrated graphically in Figures 6.14 and 6.15. The x-axis represents the file size and
the y-axis represents the execution time.
From our experiments, we found that the verification time and the lookup service
of the model are approximately same for both TDFS and normal files. Therefore, the
source of extra delay must be introduced by the transfer time. Hence, we run the same
 Data protection and mobility management for cloud 141

TDFS is moved from

original cloud to the
visited cloud

Normal file is moved

from original cloud to
the visited cloud

Figure 6.16 Data notification view in Samsung Galaxy Note 4

request with different data sizes. The results show that the transfer data time is indeed
the significant source of latency.
This means the data protection and MS do not introduce significant overheads
when the data size was increased. Overall, the amount of overheads is considered as
a small price to pay for security and data protection. With our proposed model, the
supervisor can trigger TDFS into an active state to self-protection; self-defense and
record accessed addresses, whereas these operations on cannot perform normal files.
Figure 6.16 shows alerting messages for move requests as received by the user via
the mobile phone in the move process. The message includes essential information
about the moving process such as file name, moving addresses, time. It is demon-
strated that the supervisor can detect data move operation and invoke the MS to send
the alerting message to user’s mobile device immediately when there is a request to
move the data at both the original cloud and visited cloud.
Data-moving cases test among different cloud
In the following experiments, we deploy the model for different data-moving cases for
ADCu described in Section 6.2. Requests were created from both inside and outside
the cloud for different data-moving cases. Our primary goal is to demonstrate the
efficiency, security and transparency of the proposed model. In addition, we recorded
and compared the verification and MS service duration of requests from inside and
outside the cloud to identify the source of latency. The results of outside requests
within different data-moving cases are compared in Figures 6.17 and 6.18.
As can be seen from Figure 6.17, the verification and MS costs of the second case
and the third case are substantially higher in comparison with that of the first case (the
average times are 837.6 ms, 705.5 ms, and 353.9 ms, respectively) whereas there is
only a small difference in the costs of the last two cases. This can be explained by the
142 Data security in cloud computing

Processing time (ms)

1,000
800
600
400
200
0 File size (kB)
300 400 500 600 700 800 900 1,000
First data-moving case Second data-moving case Third data-moving case

Figure 6.17 Verification and mobility service duration of different data-moving

cases

Processing time (ms)

1,000 First data-moving case Second data-moving case Third data-moving case
800
600
400
200
0
300 400 500 600 700 800 900 1,000 File size (kB)

Figure 6.18 Processing duration of different data-moving cases

fact that for the last two cases, the move process requires two stages: sending requests
to the old cloud and relaying these requests to the original cloud. All requests have
to be forwarded to the original cloud which is responsible for verifying the requests
and executing the MS even when requests are created from original cloud (the third
data-moving case). We also recorded the response time of verification and MS by
requests from inside cloud to compare with that of requests from another cloud. The
requests from inside the cloud can be created from two sources. One is from inside
the original cloud to move the data to a new cloud and the other is from a visited cloud
to move the data to new cloud or back to the original cloud. As the transferring data
costs are similar for both two kinds of request within moving cases on the same data.
In fact, the verification and MS cost is also the same for an inside request at visited
cloud for the second and third data-moving case. Thus, we only record the average
response time for these two kinds of request (251.4 ms and 612.6 ms, respectively).
Similarly, the average response times of the second and third data-moving case are
about double that of the first data-moving case due to the relay process.
The overhead for data retrieval from a TDFS involves verification and identifi-
cation, data loading, and network communication cost. To evaluate the costs of the
verification and MSs, we run a number of tests. A total of 50 working threads are
allocated to generate user requests in parallel. Hence, we initialized six sets of tests
 Data protection and mobility management for cloud 143

Processing time (ms)

250,000 T1
200,000 T2
150,000 T3
100,000 T4
50,000 T5
0 Request traffic
50 100 200 300 400 500

Figure 6.19 Time cost of verification and mobility services for different
data-moving cases and requests

in which the number of requests ranged from 50 to 500, and each set of test runs
five times circularly. Figure 6.19 illustrates the time cost of executing time cost of
verification and MSs for different data-moving cases and requests. The x-axis rep-
resents the number of requests, and the y-axis represents the execution time. As we
can observe, along with the increasing of the number of requests, the time cost of
verification and MSs increases obviously. As we observe, the average time of inside
requests for the first data-moving case (47920.1 ms) is similar to that for the outside
requests (48074.55 ms). This is repeated similarly for the second data-moving case
and the third data-moving case. However, the average time of requests for the second
data-moving case and the third data-moving case (115285.8 ms) is approximately
twice than that for the first data-moving case (47997.34 ms). It can be explained that
the requests have to be forwarded back to the original cloud for executing verifica-
tion and MSs. Generally, the time cost grows linearly with the increase of traffic
requests. This indicates that the DMM model can efficiently avoid an exponential
increase in response time when handling multiple requests. Replicas of the services
to geographically separate hosts may be used to achieve load balancing and improve
performance.
Figure 6.20 presented the data-moving operations for different data-moving cases.
All data-moving cases will be triggered by the supervisor. The first one is triggering
the MS and TDFS when data is moved from the original cloud to the visited cloud;
the second one is triggering the MS and TDFS when the data at visited cloud to a new
cloud; the third one is triggering the MS and TDFS when the data at visited cloud
is moved back to the original cloud; and the last one is triggering the MS and TDFS
when data is moved out from cloud. In all these test cases, the supervisor was able
detect and trigger the MS and the TDFS when data is moved. Meanwhile, our mobile
device received the alert message immediately. A message including source address
and destination address actively notified the data owner when data was moved to a
new cloud.
Performance analysis: Our model does not rely on complex algorithm and encryp-
tion requirement. The performance of our model in terms of the computation overhead
is as follows:
Verification service: The available computation overhead on these two processes
includes access request generation, policy matching, verification between access
144 Data security in cloud computing

Test case 1: the data is

moved from original cloud
to the visited cloud

Test case 2: the data at

visited cloud is moved the
new cloud

Test case 3: the data at

visited cloud is moved back
to the original cloud

Test case 4: the data at

visited cloud is moved out
from cloud

Figure 6.20 Data-moving cases notification view in Samsung Galaxy Note 4

request and targeted policy, calculating verification token, and access response gen-
eration. Among these operations, the policy matching complexity is O(N); verification
complexity relies on the number of context variables required to analyze; other
operations complexity are O(1).
Mobility service: The MS creates requests to query the database, which only adds
negligible overhead to database as it does not incur initialization cost and database join
algorithms. It only takes charge of triggering task, the other fetching data locations
will be handled by the database instance.

6.4.4.4 Attack test and security analysis

In this section, we analyze possible attacks on our model. As the peripheral environ-
ment protector, the access control layer (ACL) in the entire framework resembles the
firewall in a network security system that manages the incoming and outgoing net-
work traffic to secure the internal network or computers. It blocks and defends external
attacks caused by adversaries. Through authorization and authentication scheme based
on the CPRBAC service, unauthorized requests would be rejected from accessing the
active data stored in the cloud data storage layer. However, adversaries may leverage
the elevation of privilege or illegal channel to gain the higher administration privilege
(it can bypass the ACL) to directly commit an inner attack or penetrate data storage
layer.
 Data protection and mobility management for cloud 145

6.4.4.5 Direct access and intrusion attacks

The most direct attack is when an adversary tries to access the TDFS’s content or
move it to unauthorized locations. The verification process in our model operates
as follows: any request to access a TDFS has to be verified at the CPRBAC for
access permissions and the LRD for data’s identification. Only the entity, whose
request passed the verification, may continue to perform operations on the TDFS. If
the TDFS’s content is accessed, the shell within the TDFS will be triggered its shell
protection scheme to execute verification and identification [6]. A request without
any parameter is straightway regarded as an intrusion attack. Even if the adversary
could input correct parameters within the request’s structure, the verification process
is executed to ensure the consistency of both CPRBAC and LRD. In fact, the data
owner may also be informed with a notification message.

6.4.4.6 TDFS external attacks

If an attacker bypasses cloud firewall and security system and obtains a root privilege,
he or she is able to execute data operations at the OS levels on the TDFS, such as copy,
move, and delete the entire TDFS from cloud. These operations would not trigger the
TDFS files into an active state without a supervisor’s instructions, and hence, the
adversary is able to expose sensitive information inside the TDFS. Data operations
on TDFS are fully monitored based on the establishment of a clone supervisor in
the same domain. Once the adversary performs these operations, the supervisor can
detect them and then trigger the TDFS into an active state as well as notify the data
owner. In the active state, the TDFS can execute self-protection process. For data
owners, if their data is compromised or violated against the SLA of the subscribed
cloud service, the MS can inform them through a mobile device. Furthermore, any
illegal violations could be delivered to relevant governance, regulation, and compli-
ance authorities. Figure 6.20 shows notification messages which are triggered by the
supervisor.

6.5 Discussion and conclusion

6.5.1 Discussion
The last section focuses on our DMM model and the trust-oriented data protection
framework. This section discusses several assumptions and measures that can be
improved and extended in the future.
When an ADCu moves from its original cloud to another cloud, the responsibility
to protect the data depends on the SLAs between the data owner and its original
cloud provider as well as between the original cloud provider and the visited cloud
provider. The mechanisms to deal with security and protection can be complex and
vary depending on the agreements and assumptions. If we assume that the original
cloud is mainly responsible for its registered data, then the tasks of authentication and
authorization at a foreign cloud have to be done at the original cloud. This implies
that the clone a supervisor established at the visited cloud has little responsibility as it
146 Data security in cloud computing

will pass any requests to do with its data to the original cloud to deal with. However,
if we assume that the new cloud will be mainly responsible for its visited data, the
supervisor has to be generated with adequate capabilities. In this work, we assume a
light-weight supervisor as it passes requests to the original cloud.
The assumptions also affect the performance of the moving process. As in our
cases, requests to move data always have to be relayed back to the original cloud and,
hence, the MS to processing time and the verification time can be doubled or tripled
depending whether the move involves two or three clouds. If the authentication and
authorization processes are delegated to the visited cloud, these processing times can
be reduced.
The way the active ADCu communicates with other entities can be selectively
designed. The ACDu when moved to a visited cloud may or may not be able to com-
municate with its owner. Even if it may, the owner may not wish to be disturbed
unnecessarily, and some acceptable communications mechanisms should be devel-
oped. It is important that the ACDu must be able to protect itself and to communicate
with some reliable external entity if the protection model is to be credible.
Clearly, those assumptions can be relaxed and the basic model can be extended
to deal with various situations and provide more comprehensive data mobility and
protection management.

6.5.2 Conclusion
This chapter discusses data protection and mobility management in cloud environ-
ments. It also presents an active framework for data protection and an extended
trust-oriented framework for data mobility and protection for handling secure data
mobility in a cloud environment that involves data moving within and among the orig-
inal cloud and visited clouds. It also proposed a novel LRD that is capable to serve
for tracing and tracking data locations. Furthermore, a new TDFS structure with
recordable structure was designed to actively capture locations of requests. More
importantly, a proposed establishing supervisor at visited cloud is able to deploy the
equivalent data protection scheme at both cloud side to achieve an intrusion tolerant
scheme. The experimental outcomes demonstrate feasibility, efficiency of the model.
Further, the reliability of the system is guaranteed in terms of processing time.

References
[1] L. Schubert and K. Jeffery, “Advances in clouds,” Report of the Cloud
Computing Expert Working Group. European Commission, 2012.
[2] I. Foster, Z. Yong, I. Raicu, and L. Shiyong, “Cloud Computing and Grid Com-
puting 360-Degree Compared,” in GCE’08 Grid Computing Environments
Workshop, 2008, pp. 1–10.
[3] A. Juels and A. Oprea, “New approaches to security and availability for cloud
data,” Commun. ACM, vol. 56, pp. 64–73, 2013.
 Data protection and mobility management for cloud 147

[4] L. Chen and D. B. Hoang, “Active data-centric framework for data protection in
cloud environment,” in ACIS 2012: Location, location, location: Proceedings
of the 23rd Australasian Conference on Information Systems, 2012, pp. 1-11.
[5] L. Jae-Woo, “Mobility Management Using Frequently Visited Location
Database,” in Multimedia and Ubiquitous Engineering, 2007. MUE’07.
International Conference on, 2007, pp. 159–163.
[6] L. Chen and D. B. Hoang, “Active data-centric framework for data protection in
cloud environment,” in ACIS 2012: Location, location, location: Proceedings
of the 23rd Australasian Conference on Information Systems 2012, 2012, pp.
1–11.
[7] A. Albeshri, C. Boyd, and J. G. Nieto, “GeoProof: Proofs of Geographic Loca-
tion for Cloud Computing Environment,” in 32nd International Conference on
Distributed Computing Systems Workshops (ICDCSW), 2012, pp. 506–514.
[8] K. Benson, R. Dowsley, and H. Shacham, “Do you know where your cloud
files are?,” presented at the Proceedings of the 3rd ACM workshop on Cloud
computing security workshop, Chicago, Illinois, USA, 2011.
[9] Z. N. J. Peterson, M. Gondree, and R. Beverly, “A position paper on data
sovereignty: the importance of geolocating data in the cloud,” presented at the
Proceedings of the 3rd USENIX conference on Hot topics in cloud computing,
Portland, OR, 2011.
[10] T. Ries, V. Fusenig, C. Vilbois, and T. Engel, “Verification of Data Location in
Cloud Networking,” in Fourth IEEE International Conference on Utility and
Cloud Computing (UCC), 2011, pp. 439–444.
[11] S. Betge-Brezetz, G. B. Kamga, M. P. Dupont, and A. Guesmi, “Privacy
Control in Cloud VM File Systems,” in Cloud Computing Technology and
Science (CloudCom), 2013 IEEE 5th International Conference on, 2013,
pp. 276–280.
[12] A. Noman and C. Adams, “DLAS: Data Location Assurance Service for
cloud computing environments,” in Tenth Annual International Conference
on Privacy, Security and Trust (PST), 2012, pp. 225–228.
[13] E. Androulaki, C. Soriente, L. Malisa, and S. Capkun, “Enforcing Loca-
tion and Time-Based Access Control on Cloud-Stored Data,” in IEEE 34th
International Conference on Distributed Computing Systems (ICDCS), 2014,
pp. 637–648.
[14] A. Squicciarini, S. Sundareswaran, and D. Lin, “Preventing Information Leak-
age from Indexing in the Cloud,” in Cloud Computing (CLOUD), 2010 IEEE
3rd International Conference on, 2010, pp. 188–195.
[15] S. Sundareswaran, A. Squicciarini, D. Lin, and H. Shuo, “Promoting Dis-
tributed Accountability in the Cloud,” in IEEE International Conference on
Cloud Computing (CLOUD), 2011, pp. 113–120.
[16] S. Sundareswaran, A. C. Squicciarini, and D. Lin, “Ensuring Distributed
Accountability for Data Sharing in the Cloud,” IEEE Transactions on Depend-
able and Secure Computing, vol. 9, pp. 556–568, 2012.
[17] S. Kamara and K. Lauter, “Cryptographic Cloud Storage,” in Financial Cryp-
tography and Data Security. vol. 6054, R. Sion, R. Curtmola, S. Dietrich,
148 Data security in cloud computing

A. Kiayias, J. Miret, K. Sako, and F. Sebé, Eds., ed: Springer Berlin Heidelberg,
2010, pp. 136–149.
[18] N. Virvilis, S. Dritsas, and D. Gritzalis, “Secure Cloud Storage: Available
Infrastructures and Architectures Review and Evaluation,” in Trust, Privacy
and Security in Digital Business. vol. 6863, S. Furnell, C. Lambrinoudakis,
and G. Pernul, Eds., ed: Springer Berlin Heidelberg, 2011, pp. 74–85.
[19] Y. Shucheng, W. Cong, R. Kui, and L. Wenjing, “Achieving Secure, Scalable,
and Fine-grained Data Access Control in Cloud Computing,” in Proceedings
of IEEE INFOCOM, 2010, pp. 1–9.
[20] A. Juels and J. Burton S. Kaliski, “Pors: proofs of retrievability for large files,”
presented at the Proceedings of the 14th ACM conference on Computer and
communications security, Alexandria, Virginia, USA, 2007.
[21] K. D. Bowers, A. Juels, and A. Oprea, “Proofs of retrievability: theory and
implementation,” presented at the Proceedings of the 2009 ACM workshop on
Cloud computing security, Chicago, Illinois, USA, 2009.
[22] H. Shacham and B. Waters, “Compact Proofs of Retrievability,” presented
at the Proceedings of the 14th International Conference on the Theory and
Application of Cryptology and Information Security: Advances in Cryptology,
Melbourne, Australia, 2008.
[23] M. Kallahalla, E. Riedel, R. Swaminathan, Q. Wang, and K. Fu, “Plutus:
Scalable Secure File Sharing on Untrusted Storage,” presented at the Proceed-
ings of the 2nd USENIX Conference on File and Storage Technologies, San
Francisco, CA, 2003.
[24] E.-J. Goh, H. Shacham, N. Modadugu, and D. Boneh, “SiRiUS: Securing
Remote Untrusted Storage,” NDSS, vol. 3, pp. 131–145, 2003.
[25] S. Wang, D. Agrawal, and A. E. Abbadi, “A comprehensive framework
for secure query processing on relational data in the cloud,” presented at
the Proceedings of the 8th VLDB international conference on Secure data
management, Seattle, WA, 2011.
[26] M. W. Storer, K. M. Greenan, E. L. Miller, and K. Voruganti, “POTSHARDS:
secure long-term storage without encryption,” presented at the 2007 USENIX
AnnualTechnical Conference on Proceedings of the USENIXAnnualTechnical
Conference, Santa Clara, CA, 2007.
[27] L. Chen and D. B. Hoang, “Addressing Data and User Mobility Challenges
in the Cloud,” in IEEE Sixth International Conference on Cloud Computing
(CLOUD), 2013, pp. 549–556.
[28] M. C. Mont, S. Pearson, and P. Bramhall, “Towards accountable manage-
ment of identity and privacy: sticky policies and enforceable tracing services,”
in Database and Expert Systems Applications, 2003. Proceedings. 14th
International Workshop on, 2003, pp. 377–382.
[29] P. Maniatis, D. Akhawe, K. Fall, E. Shi, S. McCamant, and D. Song, “Do you
know where your data are?: secure data capsules for deployable data protec-
tion,” presented at the Proceedings of the 13th USENIX conference on Hot
topics in operating systems, Napa, California, 2011.
 Data protection and mobility management for cloud 149

[30] L. B. Othmane and L. Lilien, “Protecting Privacy of Sensitive Data Dissemi-

nation Using Active Bundles,” in 2009 World Congress on Privacy, Security,
Trust and the Management of e-Business, 2009, pp. 202–213.
[31] R. Ranchal, B. Bhargava, L. B. Othmane, L. Lilien, K. Anya, K. Myong,
and M. Linderman, “Protection of Identity Information in Cloud Computing
without Trusted Third Party,” in Reliable Distributed Systems, 2010 29th IEEE
Symposium on, 2010, pp. 368–372.
[32] P. Angin, B. Bhargava, R. Ranchal, N. Singh, M. Linderman, L. B. Othmane,
and L. Lilien, “An Entity-Centric Approach for Privacy and Identity Manage-
ment in Cloud Computing,” in Reliable Distributed Systems, 2010 29th IEEE
Symposium on, 2010, pp. 177–183.
[33] D. Popa, K. Boudaoud, M. Borda, and M. Cremene, “Mobile cloud applica-
tions and traceability,” in RoEduNet International Conference 12th Edition
Networking in Education and Research, 2013, pp. 1–4.
[34] J. Abawajy, “Establishing Trust in Hybrid Cloud Computing Environments,” in
Trust, Security and Privacy in Computing and Communications (TrustCom),
2011 IEEE 10th International Conference on, 2011, pp. 118–125.
[35] M. Firdhous, O. Ghazali, and S. Hassan, “A trust computing mechanism
for cloud computing with multilevel thresholding,” in Industrial and Infor-
mation Systems (ICIIS), 2011 6th IEEE International Conference on, 2011,
pp. 457–461.
[36] W. Cong, W. Qian, R. Kui, and L. Wenjing, “Privacy-Preserving Public Audit-
ing for Data Storage Security in Cloud Computing,” in INFOCOM, 2010
Proceedings IEEE, 2010, pp. 1–9.
[37] T. D. Dang, D. Hoang, and P. Nanda, “Data Mobility Management Model
for Active Data Cubes,” in Trustcom/BigDataSE/ISPA, 2015 IEEE, 2015,
pp. 750–757.
[38] L. Chen and D. B. Hoang, “Towards Scalable, Fine-Grained, Intrusion-Tolerant
Data Protection Models for Healthcare Cloud,” in IEEE 10th International
Conference on Trust, Security and Privacy in Computing and Communications
(TrustCom), 2011, pp. 126–133.
[39] L. Chen and D. B. Hoang, “Novel Data Protection Model in Healthcare Cloud,”
in High Performance Computing and Communications (HPCC), 2011 IEEE
13th International Conference on, 2011, pp. 550–555.
[40] A. EC2. (2014). Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud. Available: http://aws.
amazon.com/.
[41] Azure. (2014). Microsoft Azure. Available: https://azure.microsoft.com.
[42] N. e. C. T. a. R. (NeCTAR). Available: http://nectar.org.au/.
[43] GCM. (2014). Google Cloud Messaging for Android. Available: https://
developer.android.com/google/gcm/index.html.
This page intentionally left blank
 Chapter 7
Understanding software-defined perimeter
Chenkang Tang1 , Vimal Kumar1 , and Sivadon Chaisiri1

Abstract

In network security, a perimeter of a network of computers and other equipment

is formed as a secure barrier protecting digital assets in the network from being
accessed and compromised by unauthorized users. In cloud computing, building
such a perimeter is challenging due to a wider and likely unknown boundary of
multiple overlay networks of cloud services, resources and devices communicating
with each other. To overcome this challenge, the software-defined perimeter (SDP)
proposed by the Cloud Security Alliance (CSA) can be used to build a manageable
secure perimeter for cloud-connected services, resources and devices. So far, SDP
has proved to be a strong defense against network attacks under simulated tests and
security challenges, hackathons conducted by CSA. In this chapter, we present the
SDP specification and also discuss its security features and components, including
zero visibility, single packet authorization, mutual transport layer security, device
validation, dynamic firewalls and application binding that are behind the successful
defense of SDP and a potential solution for securing data in the cloud.

7.1 Introduction
Traditionally, the security perimeter in network infrastructure has defined the bound-
ary between the private and the public networks. Everything inside the perimeter is
trusted, and everything outside the perimeter is untrusted. This perimeter deploys
various security tools and technologies to protect users’ data and applications from
different types of attacks from the untrusted zone. Although this seems straightfor-
ward, the evolution of network, network technologies and new attack vectors have
meant that protecting network infrastructure has become increasingly hard. According
to SafeNet 2014 Survey [1], although 74% of IT decision-makers trust their organi-
zation’s perimeter security, yet about half (44%) of them admitted that their perimeter
has been breached or did not know if it had been breached. With cyber-attacks on

1
Cyber Security Lab, University of Waikato, New Zealand
152 Data security in cloud computing

the rise, the cost of IT security is becoming an increasingly heavy burden for every
organization. According to the latest Gartner report [2], the worldwide spending on
information security was $75.4 billion in 2015, which will jump to $101 billion in
2018 and soar to $170 billion by 2020.
The modern network has become very sophisticated and expansive as more and
more potential entry points are added into the network. With the wide use of Bring-
Your-Own-Device (BYOD) and cloud computing, the traditional network perimeter
is unable to protect against malicious software and unauthorized users accessing the
private network and data [3]. In 2014, the Cloud Security Alliance (CSA) launched the
software-defined perimeter (SDP) project, with the goal of defending against network-
based attacks by reducing the perimeter surface [4]. This protocol was previously only
used by US government agencies such as the Department of Defense, SDP only allows
TCP connections from preauthorized users and devices based on the “need-to-know”
model [5].
At the time of writing of this chapter, very little material about SDP was available.
This chapter therefore attempts to provide a clear understanding of SDP and put it in
the context of cloud-based perimeter security. We go over the current state of the art
in perimeter security and try to explain SDP and its architecture to our readers in a
lucid manner. We will use the SDP specification 1.0 [5] as our main source of infor-
mation. The chapter is structured as follows: Section 7.2 introduces the idea of SDP.
It also describes some similar products and software-defined systems for the cloud.
Section 7.3 gives a detailed description of the SDP and how its different components
work together. We describe the SDP architecture, configurations and workflow before
explaining the communication that takes place between various components of SDP.
In Section 7.4, we discuss why SDP is able to provide high levels of perimeter security
before finally concluding it in Section 7.5.

7.2 Background and related work

Perimeter security is not a new concept as historically people have used physical
barriers to prevent, or at least delay attacks on villages, castles, facilities and buildings.
These barriers define the perimeter. In the early days of computing before the internet,
physical access control was sufficient for perimeter security as computers were placed
in secure machine rooms. Computers, however, went from being stationary and stand-
alone systems, to being networked together, to being on the internet, accessible from
anywhere and everywhere. When it comes to the internet, a perimeter is usually
thought of as the boundary protecting intranet or enterprise LAN from attacks or
intrusion as shown in the conceptual diagram in Figure 7.1.
Let us take the traditional Internet infrastructure as an example. It has a private
corporate network composed of machines that provide services for outside users.
Thus, external users need to build connections to the servers and send requests to
the corporate network to access services, such as sending emails or querying for
HTTP pages. In this scenario, a perimeter is needed to protect the corporate network
and authenticate incoming users. The perimeter is not only used to block malicious
traffic but also provides a method to monitor the traffic. A fixed perimeter separates
 Understanding software-defined perimeter 153

Network perimeter Firewall

PKI IPS

Internal
network

IDS
VPN

Border routers

Figure 7.1 Conceptual diagram showing the perimeter enclosing an enterprise’s

resources

an internal network from the outside network. It may also provide a set of firewall
functions that can block external access while allowing internal users to connect to
outside network. Overall, a network perimeter enables users to manage their network
and have better control of its security. Usually, the perimeter network is bounded
by firewalls, but the firewall is not the only component in the perimeter. A series
of systems may be applied to define a network perimeter, such as border routers,
firewalls, intrusion detection systems, intrusion prevention systems, virtual private
network (VPN), public key infrastructure (PKI). We discuss these systems below.

7.2.1 Firewalls
A firewall is a network security system which is used to monitor and control traffic
in a network. The first generation of firewalls was based on packet filtering, which
inspects the network addresses and port numbers to determine if the packet is allowed
or blocked. The user can set up rules based on network addresses, protocols and
port numbers. When packets go through the firewall, they are tested against filtering
rules. If the packets do not match allowing rules, they are dropped. The second
generation of firewalls was called “stateful” firewalls, which maintain the state of
all packets passing through them. With such stateful information about packets, the
firewalls could assess whether a new packet is the start of a new connection or a
part of an existing connection [6]. The stateful firewalls can speed up the packet
filtering process. When a packet has been inspected as part of an existing connection
based on a state table, it will be allowed without further analysis. If the packet has not
been recognized as an existing connection, it will be inspected as a new connection by
firewall security rules. Application layer firewalls are the third generation of firewalls
having the ability to understand certain applications and protocols as they operate and
can be used to detect the misuse of certain protocols such as HTTP, FTP and DNS [7].
154 Data security in cloud computing

Proxy servers can also be used as firewalls. A proxy server acts as an intermediary
for traffic between two specific networks [8]. Both sides of the network need to build
connection through the proxy so that the proxy firewall can allow or block traffic
based on different security rules.
Although firewalls can be used as an efficient security control for network security
infrastructures, some experts feel it has become outdated as the networks have become
more complicated [9]. There are many entry points and many access control roles
based on different users in the modern network. Thus, modern network needs other
newer techniques and methods working together to make it secure.

7.2.2 Virtual private network

VPN is a technology that creates a private network across a public network. The
private network enables remote users to send and receive data with a secure con-
nection between them and connected systems. It means VPN is an extension of
the connectivity between mobile users, remote offices, customers and suppliers.
Figure 7.2 shows simplified view of a VPN connection structure. Remote-access
and site-to-site VPNs are two common types of VPNs. Remote-access VPN provides
secure access for remote users to connect to their destination’s network through a
public telecommunication infrastructure. Site-to-site VPN uses gateway devices to
build secure connection between two networks in two different locations.
VPN, which can form a network perimeter, has been a fairly trusted means
of remote access; it, however, still has some disadvantages. The effectiveness of
a perimeter created by VPN depends heavily on the security of the endpoints. These
endpoints are the telecommuter’s machines which are outside the network perime-
ter. Although one can trust the security of the perimeter, the roaming endpoints are
outside of the perimeter and therefore are prone to being compromised. VPN can
protect the data in transit between the endpoints from attacks; however, if an attacker

Internet VPN
Regional
office

Internet Regional
office

Regional
office

Remote
users

Figure 7.2 Simplified VPN connection structure

 Understanding software-defined perimeter 155

compromises an authenticated user’s machine, the VPN will give the attacker an
encrypted channel to connect into the network perimeter. VPN is unable to protect
against such attacks which are on the rise now [10]. Furthermore, the capital costs
associated with VPN gateways setup for individual servers are considerably high [4].

7.2.3 Public key infrastructure

The comprehensive setup that helps to distribute and identify public encryption keys
and digital certificates and enable users to communicate with servers and other users
securely is called the PKI. Sensitive information can be encrypted without PKI too,
but there is no assurance of the identity of each end user and, hence, there will be no
trust. A certificate authority (CA), a registration authority, a certificate database and
a certificate store are the key elements of PKI. CA is regarded as a trusted third party
in the PKI infrastructure. CAs verify the identity of an entity on the internet and issue
a digital certificate which is bound to that entity. This certificate can then be used
by the entity on the internet to prove its identity. A major weakness of PKI is that if
the trusted CA is compromised, the entire PKI becomes insecure. In 2011, Dutch CA
DigiNotar was broken into and the intruders managed to create more than 500 fake
digital certificates. Eventually, web browser vendors had to block all the certificates
issued by DigiNotar, and the company is no longer in operation [11].

7.2.4 Transport layer security

Transport layer security (TLS) protocol has evolved from secure sockets layer (SSL).
Both SSL and TLS protocols provide data privacy and integrity between two commu-
nicating applications. The TLS record protocol and TLS handshake protocol are the
two layers that compose TLS on the basis of the protocol specification [12]. TLS is
widely used today to ensure application data exchange in a secure environment. Many
applications such as web apps, file transfers, VPN connections, instant messaging and
voice over IP use TLS to encrypt data over the network. According to the protocol
specification in [12], the TLS record protocol provides connection security. When a
connection is made, the handshake protocol is used to exchange all the information
needed by client side and server side for exchanging application data. This process
enables both sides to authenticate each other and to negotiate cryptographic keys and
encryption algorithms. Mutual transport layer security (mTLS) is an enhanced pro-
tocol that provides mutual authentication for both the client side and the server side.
With mTLS, not only the servers but the clients also need to provide a certificate for
identification.

7.2.5 Other SDP-like solutions

7.2.5.1 Directory enabled networking
Directory enabled networking (DEN) is a relatively old specification proposed by
Cisco and others, which binds services to clients in a network. In a DEN network,
users, applications and network services are abstracted as profiles. A profile is an
object that has properties and attributes describing its behavior. These profiles are
156 Data security in cloud computing

integrated through a common information model that stores the necessary network
information [13]. The other main component in a DEN is a set of policies. In a dis-
tributed network, a network manager needs policies to control all resources. In general,
a policy defines which resources or services can be accessed by a corresponding user.
With DEN, an application on the network can provide different resource access privi-
leges to authorized users automatically. Any DEN-enabled application in the network
can know the detailed information about the network from the central directory. When
a user wants to access an application, the application should check the privilege of the
user and provide suitable service according to the role of the user. The abstraction of
a user through profiles helps DEN to provide correct access to users even when they
change locations or positions within the company. Microsoft Windows NT operating
system is an example of the application of DEN.

7.2.5.2 BeyondCorp
BeyondCorp is a model proposed by Google, which aims to improve the security of
the traditional network architecture [14]. BeyondCorp breaks the traditional security
perimeter that only allows internal users to access specific services from an internal
network. Instead, in BeyondCorp, the access solely depends upon the device and
the user credentials, irrespective of the location of the user [14]. The BeyondCorp
system does not differentiate between local network and the internet and applies the
same authentication and authorization processes for every user. This ensures that no
firewalls or VPN-like systems are needed. BeyondCorp uses the concept of a managed
device, wherein every device is explicitly managed by the enterprise. Only managed
devices can access services. Along with managed devices with verified identities, a
single sign-on system is used for all the users using those devices.

7.3 Software-defined perimeter

7.3.1 Overview of the software-defined perimeter framework

The idea of SDP security framework was proposed by CSA to keep systems secure
against network attacks and protect application infrastructure [4]. As described pre-
viously, the traditional network architecture uses a fixed perimeter which consists of
firewall functions to prevent external users from accessing internal resources with-
out authentication. The traditional fixed perimeter ensures that the internal services
remain secure on the basis of characteristics of blocking visibility and accessibility
from outside the perimeter to the internal services [15]. However, with the develop-
ment of BYOD and virtualization technology, the traditional perimeter is not enough
to ensure the network to remain secure. There are too many moving devices inside the
perimeter and applications and data migrating outside the perimeter for a traditional
fixed perimeter to be successful. Attackers can easily access applications inside the
perimeter through phishing attacks, and BYOD increases the risks as there are more
devices being brought inside the perimeter [16]. Cloud computing also makes the
traditional fixed perimeter seem old-fashioned and obsolete, as PaaS, SaaS and IaaS
 Understanding software-defined perimeter 157

change the location of the perimeter; in fact, the location of the applications, servers
and data might not even be known to provide an effective perimeter. Thus, techniques
used for traditional perimeter security are not enough to protect application in today’s
network infrastructure due to their dependency on physical network devices.
The principles behind SDP are not entirely new. Top security organizations have
previously implemented similar network architectures based on authentication and
authorization before the application data exchange [4]. SDP, however, is the first
approach to bring those ideas in public domain. The objective of SDP is to give
application owners the ability to define and deploy perimeter functionality according
to the requirements. With SDP, every server or application is initially hidden and
invisible to users who want access [4]. Users need to be authenticated and provide
identity in order to be authorized to access protected services. On the other hand,
servers’ services also need to be authenticated before users are able to access them.
It means that SDP maintains the benefits of the need-to-know model and do not
require a remote access gateway. In SDP, endpoint users need to authenticate and to
be authorized before the real data exchange. Once both sides have been allowed to
connect to each other, encrypted connections are created between requesting hosts
and the application servers.

7.3.2 Software-defined perimeter architecture

In order to protect against external attacks of today and fit the distributed network
topology, the network perimeter needs to be rebuilt. The solution is to shrink the
perimeter directly down to the server which provides application services for users.
With this solution, servers are isolated and attackers are outside the perimeter again.
This method of building a perimeter creates a very strong and secure environment for
servers. However, the inside users are also outside the perimeter in this circumstance.
SDP attempts to solve this problem [5]. SDP is basically comprised of two compo-
nents: SDP controllers and SDP hosts [5]. It separates the control channel from the
data channel as shown in Figure 7.3. Control channel is used to authenticate SDP
hosts. SDP hosts communicate with SDP controllers over this secure control channel.
Once authenticated, the SDP hosts are then able to build connections with each other.
As shown in Figure 7.3, SDP hosts are divided into two types: initiating SDP hosts
(IH) and accepting SDP hosts (AH). IHs initiate connections and thus can be thought

SDP controller

Accepting SDP
Initiating SDP host
host

Control channel Accepting SDP

Data channel host

Figure 7.3 Software-defined perimeter architecture

158 Data security in cloud computing

of as clients, whereas AHs accept connections and thus are akin to servers. Before
a connection can be made, an IH communicates with the SDP controller to request
the list of the available AHs that it wishes to connect with. The SDP controllers may
request device and user information from a database for identification and authenti-
cation before providing any information to the IH. The controller communicates with
AHs periodically to update them with the authorized IHs. AHs reject all connections
from all hosts except controllers and IHs which have already been authenticated by
controllers. SDP can be viewed as an advanced access control system which brings
a lot of benefits. SDP preauthentication mechanism enables the servers to remain
invisible to unauthenticated users and systems. This characteristic isolates servers
which can help to defend server exploitation. SDP’s end-to-end control contributes
to preventing connection hijacking. In contrast to a blanket access like in VPNs, SDP
provides access for specific authorized users to get specific applications on servers.
It means SDP architecture does not provide network connectivity to every port on the
server. Only the authorized services or applications can be connected to, from the
client side. This feature of SDP architecture makes it more secure than VPN.

7.3.3 Software-defined perimeter configurations

SDP in general can be implemented in four different configurations: (1) the client-to-
gateway configuration, (2) the client-to-server configuration, (3) the server-to-server
configuration and (4) the peer-to-peer configuration. In a cloud computing scenario,
where a service provider uses cloud to provide services to its users, the client-to-
gateway configuration appears to be more suitable. Other configurations, however,
can also be used in cloud computing depending on the specific scenario. Figure 7.4
shows the client-to-gateway configuration implemented in the cloud.
In this configuration, the authenticating host acts as a gateway between the servers
and the client. As shown in Figure 7.4, the servers are hidden behind the AH, which
acts on behalf of the servers. There may be multiple AHs each protecting a group
of servers (services) in an installation. The servers may be grouped on the basis of
the kind of services they offer or load-balancing needs. This configuration helps to
mitigate many attacks in which the attackers might move laterally across the servers,
such as application vulnerability exploits, main in the middle attacks, pass the hash
attacks [5]. For the sake of simplicity, in Figure 7.4, the AH, the servers and the
controller are all shown to be in the same cloud, whereas the client is outside the
cloud. SDP, however, is agnostic to the location of these components. The components
shown in the figure can be located in the same cloud or each of them located in a
separate cloud and the SDP configuration will still be valid. In our discussion, we will
generally refer to a singular controller, AH and IH; however, in practice, there may be
multiple controllers if required in a configuration along with multiple AHs and IHs.

7.3.4 Software-defined perimeter workflow

SDP workflow is entirely different from our everyday connectivity model. Figure
7.5(a) shows the steps that occur in a regular connectivity model. Clients build a TCP
connection to servers before any other authentication. Then, users use credentials to
 Understanding software-defined perimeter 159

Authentication,
Location IdP PKI
authorization and access MFA
service service service Servers
control services
providing
services

Authenticating hosts
(AHs)

Controller
Clients (IHs)

Cloud

Figure 7.4 Client-to-gateway SDP configuration for cloud services

Connect Login to servers MFA

(a)

MFA Login to controllers Connect

(b)

Figure 7.5 SDP workflow

log in to the server applications. In this connection model, multifactor authentication

(MFA) may be applied to defend against credential theft attacks. SDP workflow
rearranges the steps of normal connectivity as shown in Figure 7.5(b), it ensures
preauthentication of devices and users before building connections. With SDP, MFA
occurs as the first step, then users are logged in to the SDP controller [5]. Once
authorized by the controller, clients get the permission to establish connections with
the servers. This will be explained in the seven-step workflow below.
CSA’s SDP specification 1.0 [5] describes the SDP workflow as the following
seven steps:
1. The SDP controller is brought online for SDP hosts to log in. The controller
may use a variety of authentication, authorization and access control services as
shown in Figure 7.4, for verification of hosts/clients that seek to be connected to
services.
2. Accepting SDP hosts are brought online. Immediately after bootup, the hosts
are required to connect to the controller and send identification information
160 Data security in cloud computing

for authentication. Accepting hosts communicate with the controller but do not
respond to any other unauthenticated entity. The specification does not mention
how the servers are authorized by the AHs in the client-to-gateway configu-
ration; however, this will need to be done prior to the AH connecting to the
controller. When the AH communicates with the controller, it also needs to make
the controller aware of the services that are behind it.
3. An initiating host that wants to avail a service first needs to be authenticated and
registered with the controller.
4. Once the controller authenticates an IH, it selects which appropriate servers can
provide the required service to the IH and which AHs do they belong to.
5. The SDP controllers inform AHs to accept connection from the authorized IH.
6. The SDP controllers send a list of AHs; this IH can communicate along with any
other information or optional policies needed for communication.
7. The IH starts to communicate with AHs by establishing a mutual TLS connection
with each AH to perform secure communication. Note that an IH does not com-
municate directly with a server in the client-to-gateway configuration instead the
communication is through the AH that acts as a proxy.

7.3.5 Software-defined perimeter protocol

The first and the second steps in the SDP workflow bring the SDP controller and the
AHs online, this is also called onboarding. The specification by itself does not delve
into the finer details of onboarding as this can vary significantly from one installation
to other. This is left to the implementation and can be done either manually or through
IT automation tools such as Puppet or Chef. Most cloud service providers also provide
their own customized tools for easy onboarding.

7.3.5.1 Single packet authentication

One of the important building blocks of SDP is authentication. All communications,
between the IH and AH, the IH and the controller and the AH and the controller need
to first go through the authentication phase. The authentication in SDP is done using
the single packet authentication (SPA) scheme. The SPA scheme was developed from
the port knocking scheme first described in USENIX [17] in 2004. In port knocking,
the firewall protecting a server is configured to drop all received packets by default.
A legitimate user will send a sequence of packets to various ports of the server one by
one, in accordance to a previously agreed upon sequence. Although the server drops
all the packets and does not respond to the sender, a knock server keeps track of the
ports which have been knocked in the sequence. If the knock sequence is legitimate,
the server opens the port required by the user. This scheme has a few practical issues
that are overcome by the SPA scheme, which as the name suggests uses a single packet
for authentication as opposed to the multiple packets needed in port knocking.
In SPA, the communicating parties share a secret seed. The secret seed, along
with a counter, is used to create a one-time password (OTP). Whenever one party
wants to communicate with another party, the OTP is sent in a packet along with
the counter. The receiving party tries to verify the OTP and only responds if the
 Understanding software-defined perimeter 161

IP header TCP header AID (32-bit) OTP (32-bit) Counter (64-bit)

Figure 7.6 The SPA packet

verification is successful. The SPA protocol is based on the HOTP protocol defined
in RFC 4226 [18].
In SDP, an SPA packet is sent from the client to the server. Server in this case can
either be the controller or the AH. The server does not need to respond to this packet.
The format of the SPA packet is shown in Figure 7.6. Here, IP and TCP fields are
the IP and TCP headers; AID is the agent ID or the universal identifier of the client
wishing to communicate to the server. The counter is the variable input which changes
in each packet and helps to protect against replay attacks and the OTP, created using
the HOTP protocol. The OTP can be created by simply hashing the secret seed with
the variable counter. As the seed is secret and the counter is variable, this creates a
unique secret password for every packet. The SPA packet in the SDP spec 1.0 does
not provide much implementation detail. The SPA implementation of fwknop [17],
however, randomizes the packet by adding 16 bytes of random data to each packet.
In addition, to protect the integrity of the packet, it creates an MD5 digest over the
entire packet to ensure the packet is not modified before it reaches the recipient. SPA
provides the following benefits to an SDP architecture:

1. It blackens the server (either AH or the controller). The server does not respond to
any connection attempt from anyone unless a valid SPA packet has been received.
2. This helps in mitigating DoS attacks as the server doesn’t spend any resources in
processing spurious packets.
3. It helps in detecting attacks as any connection attempt that does not start with an
SPA packet can immediately be classified as an attack.

7.3.5.2 Device validation

One factor in the MFA that SDP uses is device validation. In today’s computing world,
a large amount of computing is done by mobile devices such as laptops, mobile phones
and PDAs. It is therefore important to make sure the device that one is communicat-
ing with is the correct device. Although mTLS (described in Section 7.2.4) can be
used to make sure that the device requesting a connection has valid keys, it is unable
to prove whether the keys belong to the communicating device and are not stolen.
SDP therefore takes the additional step of validating the device with which the con-
troller is communicating. Although mTLS proves that the device possesses the correct
keys, device validation proves the authenticity of the device itself. The current SDP
specification [5] does not delve into the implementation of device authentication but
recommends it for additional security. Although device validation provides an addi-
tional level of security to SDP, it also creates an additional overhead of maintaining
a certificate for each device. As the number of users and the number of devices per
user grows, certificate management will become a challenging issue.
162 Data security in cloud computing

AH Controller

Open TCP connection

SPA packet

Mutual TLS handshake

Login request message

Login response message

Services message

Figure 7.7 AH-controller communication

7.3.5.3 AH-controller protocol

When an AH is brought online, it first needs to communicate with the controller
to login and register itself as an accepting host [5]. The sequence diagram for the
AH-controller protocol is shown in Figure 7.7. This diagram only shows the message
sequence in the initial login.
As all communication in SDP is done through the TCP protocol, the first step
in the AH-controller communication is to open a TCP connection. Once a TCP con-
nection has been established, the AH sends an SPA packet to get authenticated by the
controller. A valid SPA packet will authenticate the AH. In SDP, every connection uses
TLS and every client–server pair must use mTLS for mutual authentication. The AH,
therefore, after getting authenticated initiates the mTLS handshake. Once they finish
mutual TLS handshake, the AH needs to send a login request message to indicate it
is ready for accepting information from the controller. The format of the packet sent
by AH is shown in Figure 7.9(a). The controller then sends a response message to
the AH. The response message indicates whether the login action was successful or
not. If the AH login was successful, the response message should provide AH with a
session ID. The format of this packet is shown in Figure 7.9(b). A valid status code
along with an AH session ID indicates successful creation of a session. Next, the
controller needs to tell the AH the services that are being protected. This is done by
sending a service message to the AH. SDP specification [5] suggests using a JSON
array to relay this information. The format of the service message is shown in Figure
7.9(d). If for example port 443 is being used to provide the Sharepoint service, the
JSON specification can be something like shown in Figure 7.8 [5].
 Understanding software-defined perimeter 163

Format Example

{“services”: {“services”:
[ [
“port” : <Server port>, “port” : 443
“id” : <32-bit Service ID>, “id” : 12345678,
“address” : <Server IP>, “address” : 100.100.100.100,
“name” : <Service name> “name” : SharePoint
[ [
{ {

Figure 7.8 The JSON format for AH service message

0×00 No command-specific data 0×06 JSON formatted array of services

(a) Login request message (f) IH service message

0×01 Status code (16 bits) AH session ID (256 bits) 0×07 Mux ID (64 bits)
(b) Login response message (g) Open connection request message

0×02 No command-specific data 0×08 Status code (16 bits) Mux ID (64 bits)

(c) Logout message (h) Open connection response message

0×04 JSON formatted array of services 0×09 Data length (16 bits) Mux ID (64 bits)
(d) AH service message (i) Data message

0×05 JSON formatted array of services 0×0A Mux ID (64 bits)

(e) IH authenticated message, sent from controller to AH (j) Closed connection message

Figure 7.9 SDP communication messages

If the AH wants to logout, it needs to send a logout message to the controller to

indicate that it will no longer be available for accepting any messages. The logout
message is similar to the login message; however, the AH does not expect a response
to the logout message. The format of the logout message is shown in Figure 7.9(c).
When a new IH has been authenticated, the controller needs to send an IH authen-
ticated message to AH. The AH should enable this IH to access the servers on which
the requested services exist. The IH authentication message format is shown in Figure
7.9(e). This would be clearer after the next subsection on IH-controller protocol.
The JSON specification is as follows:
{
"sid": <256-bit IH Session ID>,
"seed": <32-bit SPA seed>,
"counter": <32-bit SPA counter>
"id":<32-bit Service ID>
}
164 Data security in cloud computing

IH Controller
Open TCP connection

SPA packet

Mutual TLS handshake

Login request message

Login response message

Services message

Figure 7.10 IH-controller communication

where sid is the session ID for the IH, and id is the service ID of the service the IH
wants to use. Seed and counter fields will be used by the AH to validate the IH SPA
packet.

7.3.5.4 IH-controller protocol

When a client, also known IH in the SDP realm, wants to request for a particular ser-
vice, it first contacts the controller. As the AHs are blackened by SPA and by default
drop all communication directed toward them, the only way to connect to a server is
by first communicating with the controller and getting authenticated. The messages
exchanged in the IH-controller communication are similar to the AH-controller com-
munication. The sequence diagram for the IH to connect to the controller is shown in
Figure 7.10.
As discussed before, all communication takes place using TCP. The IH then sends
an SPA packet to the controller and gets authenticated if it has valid credentials. The
IH and the controller authenticate each other using mTLS. Then, the IH sends a login
request message to the controller to indicate that it wants to join the SDP, and it is
available. The login request message for IH-controller communication is the same as
the one used by AH and shown in Figure 7.9(a). The controller then responds to the IH
with a status code indicating whether the login was successful, or not. If the login was
successful the message will contain a 256 bit IH session id. The message is similar
to the one sent by controller to AH in AH-controller communication and shown in
Figure 7.9(b). In IH-controller communication, the message contains IH Session ID
as opposed to the AH Session ID in Figure 7.9(b). If the IH wants to logout, it can
 Understanding software-defined perimeter 165

Format Example

{“services”: {“services”:
[ [
“address” : <AH IP>, “address” : <200.200.200.200>,
“id” : <32-bit Service ID>, “id” : <12345678>,
“name” : <Service name>, “name” : <SharePoint>,
“type” : <Service type> “type” : <https>
[ [
{ {

Figure 7.11 The JSON format for IH service message

send a logout request message to the controller to indicating it wants to quit the SDP.
There is no response from the controller for this request, and the format is as shown
previously in Figure 7.9(c). When the IH has been authenticated and is logged in,
the controller needs to inform the IH of the available services and the IP addresses
of the servers offering those services. The controller does this by sending a service
messages to the IH. The format of this message is shown in Figure 7.9(f). The JSON
formatted array can hold information about multiple services. An example with one
service is shown in Figure 7.11.
7.3.5.5 IH–AH protocol
Once the AH is online and knows the services, it can offer and the IH has been
authenticated by the controller and has received a list of services and AHs which
offer them, they are ready to perform the client–server communication. In the IH–
AH protocol, the communication is always initiated by the IH. The initial message
exchange during the IH–AH protocol is similar to the ones in AH-controller and IH-
controller protocols. The IH opens a TCP connection and sends an SPA packet to get
authenticated by the AH. Once the authentication is successful, IH and AH perform
the mutual TLS handshake. This will allow both IH and AH to send and receive data
securely. The IH then sends an open connection request message as shown in Figure
7.9(g) to the AH to signal its request for a service. The message consists of an 8-bit
command and a 64-bit mux ID. The 64-bit mux ID is used to multiplex connections
for multiple services between the same IH–AH pair. The leading 32 bits in the mux ID
come from the 32-bit unique service ID of the service the IH is requesting. The trailing
32-bit identify a unique session ID for the session between the IH and the AH. The AH
then responds with an open connection response message which indicates whether
the connection was successful or not. The message format is shown in Figure 7.9(h).
Once a connection has been established, IH and AH can begin data transmission to
each other. The data transmission on either side is done with the help of the data
message, whose format is shown in Figure 7.9(i). This data message will precede the
actual payload, and it consists of a 16-bit field indicating the size of the payload to
follow, along with the command and the Mux ID. The data message does not need a
response or an acknowledgment message. If any of the IH or the AH needs to close
166 Data security in cloud computing

IH AH Service
Open TCP connection
SPA packet

Mutual TLS handshake

Open connection request

Open appropriate connection type

Open connection response

Loop [Send data both directions]

<Raw data>
Data message

Data message
<Raw data>

Connection closed

Figure 7.12 IH–AH communication

the connection a closed connection message is sent. The closed connection message
is the last message of an SDP connection. The receiver of this message closes the
connection without any further response. The format of the message is shown in
Figure 7.9(h). The messages sent between IH and an AH that is protecting a service
requested by the IH is shown in Figure 7.12.

7.4 SDP security

In this section, SDP security features and components are discussed as follows:
Zero visibility—SDP was designed to mitigate network-based attacks by dynam-
ically employing software-based security perimeter to protect any kind of network,
including clouds, demilitarized zones, data centers and even small networks [19]. So
far, SDP has proved to be a good defense against network attacks under simulated tests
[19,20]. In various hackathons conducted by CSA so far, no breach has been possible.
Each of the four hackathons conducted by CSA has been centered around specific
themes such as insider threats, DDoS attacks, credential theft and high-availability
public cloud. In each of the scenarios, the attackers were provided information which
 Understanding software-defined perimeter 167

mimics the information gathered by attackers in that particular scenario. However,

after millions of attack attempts, the SDP architecture is yet to be breached. SDP
achieves this by providing zero visibility to the outside network and utilizing multiple
levels of validation and authentication before granting access to a client. In all SDP
utilizes the following five layers of controls [19].
Single packet authorization (SPA)—As mentioned before, SPA blackens the
server, effectively making it invisible to unauthorized devices. The first packet in
SPA to the controller cryptographically verifies the authorized device. The SDP spec-
ification does not delve into the key management and distribution required for the
exchange of cryptographic material, leaving the responsibility on the implementation.
Successful verification of the SPA packet allows a device to further connect to an AH.
If the verification fails, the connection is immediately dropped without any response
to prevent clogging of network resources.
Mutual transport layer security (mTLS)—TLS is used for providing secure
communication and exchange of confidential information between two entities over
a network. Traditionally, TLS was only used to authenticate servers in a client–server
communication; however, SDP uses mTLS, in which both the client and the server
mutually authenticate each other.
Device validation (DV)—SDP performs MFA by requiring device validation.
This binds the cryptographic keys to a particular device and prevents the misuse of
stolen credentials. An attacker which has stolen cryptographic keys will fail the device
validation step unless it also happens to have stolen the device to which the credentials
belong.
Dynamic firewalls (DF)—Traditional firewalls have rules relating to the source
and destination IP address and port. In SDP, the basic rule for every communication
is, deny. Only devices and users, which have been authenticated, are allowed by first
binding the device and the user and then dynamically inserting a rule for the binding.
Thus, only authorized users and devices are able to make a connection to the protected
resources.
Application binding (AppB)—In SDP, each connection is bound to a particular
application. SDP creates an encrypted tunnel that binds the device, the user and the
service/application the user wants to connect to. Thus, an authorized user can only
interact with the application it requested. For access to other applications, the user
will have to undergo a separate authentication procedure. This elimination of crosstalk
prevents an authorized user to launch insider attacks by making use of vulnerabilities
in applications.

7.5 Conclusion
The scenarios in the SDP hackathons mimic the real-world scenarios very closely and,
therefore, it can be said with a high degree of confidence that the SDP architecture
provides an easy-to-deploy and still highly secure way of protecting network infras-
tructure. Having said that, it must be kept in mind that SDP has not been deployed
widely yet and public data about attacks on real-world deployments of SDP does
168 Data security in cloud computing

not exist. There is considerable amount of excitement in the cloud and open source
community, however, regarding SDP which is seen as a potential solution to the cloud
perimeter security problem. At the time of writing this chapter, the first open source
implementation of the client, the gateway and the controller for the client-to-gateway
SDP configuration was available [21].
The security afforded by SDP, however, comes at a cost. The security cost comes
in the form of connection delay introduced by SDP and reduced throughput. As
explained in Section 7.3.5, before a client can establish a secure connection with a
server in SDP’s client-to-gateway configuration, it has to get authenticated first by
the controller and then by the AH. Each of these authentications has three stages
where the client first opens a TCP connection then gets authenticated using SPA and
then performs a mutual TLS handshake. This has the potential to add significant
a connection delay, which will be exacerbated by the network latency of the cloud
itself. The other form of cost in SDP is the reduced throughput. The data message
in the current version of SDP is an 88-bit message, which precedes the transmission
of data. This along with mTLS’s own overhead and the communication between IH
and controller and the IH and AH to establish secure communication contributes in
reducing the throughput of the SDP communication. The overhead and the maximum
payload can give a rough idea about the throughput of SDP. The additional overhead
and in turn reduced throughput caused by the SDP therefore cannot be ignored.
Thus, although SDP is capable of providing unbreakable (as of yet) security, any
implementation of SDP will need to consider the effects of both connection delay and
reduced throughput.
The analysis and understanding of the SDP presented in this chapter are based
on SDP specification version 1.0 [5] which was available at the time of writing this
chapter. The SDP working group of the CSA is currently working on specification
version 2.0, which will possibly be more detailed and will focus on protecting services
in IoT and cloud computing.

References
[1] SafeNet Inc, Oct. 2014, Baltimore, Available: http://www.safenet-
inc.pt/news/2014/data-security-confidence-index-results/ [retrieved February
21, 2017].
[2] S. Moore, “Gartner Says Worldwide Information Security Spending Will Grow
4.7 Percent to Reach $75.4 Billion in 2015” Gartner, 23 September 2015,
Available: http://www.gartner.com/newsroom/id/3135617 [retrieved February
21, 2017].
[3] Z. Dimitrio and L. Dimitrios, “Addressing cloud computing security issues,”
Future Generation Computer Systems, vol. 28, no. 3, pp. 583–592, 2012.
[4] Software Defined Perimeter Working Group, “Software Defined Perime-
ter,” December 2013. Available: https://downloads.cloudsecurityalliance.
org/initiatives/sdp/Software_Defined_Perimeter.pdf [retrieved February 21,
2017].
 Understanding software-defined perimeter 169

[5] Software Defined Perimeter Working Group, “SDP Specification 1.0,”

April 2014. Available: https://cloudsecurityalliance.org/download/sdp-
specification-v1-0/ [retrieved February 21, 2017].
[6] M. G. Gouda and A. X. Liu, “A model of stateful firewalls and its proper-
ties,” in 2005 International Conference on Dependable Systems and Networks
(DSN’05), 2005.
[7] A. Mohd Zafran Abdul, “Performance analysis of application layer firewall,”
in Wireless Technology and Applications (ISWTA), 2012 IEEE Symposium on,
2012.
[8] O. Rolf, “Internet security: firewalls and beyond,” Communications of the
ACM, vol. 40, no. 5, pp. 92–102, May 1997.
[9] W. A. Arbaugh, “Firewalls: an outdated defense,” Computer, vol. 36, no. 6,
pp. 112–113, June 2003. doi: 10.1109/MC.2003.1204384.
[10] Mandiant, “A view from the front lines,” http://www2.fireeye.com/rs/
fireye/images/rpt-m-trends-2015.pdf [retrieved March 2017].
[11] N. Van der Meulen, “DigiNotar: dissecting the first Dutch digital disaster,”
Journal of Strategic Security, vol. 6, no. 2, p. 46, 2013.
[12] Tim Dierks, “The transport layer security (TLS) protocol version 1.2,” Network
Working Group, RFC 5246, 2008.
[13] Y. Xinzhong, “Directory Enabled Networks,” Helsinki University of Technol-
ogy, December 1998.
[14] W. Rory and B. Betsy, “BeyondCorp: a new approach to enterprise security,”
login, vol. 39, no. 6, pp. 5–11, 2014.
[15] J. Ari and O. Alina, “New approaches to security and availability for cloud
data,” Communications of the ACM, vol. 56, no. 2, pp. 64–73, 2013.
[16] S. Kristoffer, “Mobile device security: exploring the possibilities and limita-
tions with Bring Your Own Device (BYOD),” (Master’s Thesis), KTH, School
of Electrical Engineering (EES), Communication Networks, Sweden, 2013.
[17] M. Rash, “Single packet authorization with Fwknop,” December 2005,
Whitepaper. http://www.cipherdyne.org/fwknop/docs/SPA.html [retrieved
March 2017].
[18] D. M’Raihi, M. Bellare, F. Hoornaert, D. Naccache and O. Ranen, “Hotp:
an hmac-based one-time password algorithm,” Network Working Group, RFC
4226, Oct. 2004.
[19] SDP Working Group, “SDP Hackathon Whitepaper,” April 2014
https://downloads.cloudsecurityalliance.org/initiatives/sdp/SDP_Hackathon_
Whitepaper.pdf [retrieved March 2017].
[20] SDP Working Group, “SDP hackathon 4, Analysis and Report,” March
2016 https://www.vidder.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/CSA-Verizon-
Vidder-Hackathon4-Reliability.pdf [retrieved March 2017].
[21] Open Source Software Defined Perimeter. http://www.waverleylabs.com/
open-source-sdp/ [retrieved March 2017].
This page intentionally left blank
 Chapter 8
Security, trust, and privacy for cloud computing
in Transportation Cyber-Physical Systems
Wenjia Li1 , Jonathan Voris1 , and N. Sertac Artan2

Abstract
Transportation Cyber-Physical Systems (TCPS) strive to achieve the seamless inter-
operability of a rich set of sensors embedded in vehicles, roadside units, and other
infrastructure with computing platforms ranging from smartphones to cloud servers,
through a variety of communication mechanisms. A successful TCPS will provide
smart and scalable solutions to some of the major problems urban societies facing
today including high fatalities in road crashes, time and emission costs of traffic con-
gestion, and efficient allocation of parking spaces. However, the practicality of such
a TCPS is challenged by (1) stakeholders with different and often conflicting security
and privacy requirements, (2) the demands of real-time data intensive computing and
communication, and (3) a high level of heterogeneity in the types of technologies
deployed.
Transportation Cloud Computing, which is the integration of Cloud Comput-
ing with TCPS, is a promising solution to the challenges listed above for a scalable
implementation. This chapter presents the security, trust, and privacy issues posed
by integrating cloud computing with TCPS as in the first challenge above. We will
survey the state of the art with respect to countermeasures which are capable of provid-
ing improved security and privacy for cloud computing in TCPS. More specifically,
we will first discuss the unique challenges and the current state of the art in TCPS as
well as the integration of cloud computing techniques into a TCPS application sce-
nario. Next, we will present a comprehensive literature review on attack surface and
strategies for cloud computing in TCPS. To address these attacks, we will describe
various techniques to enhance security, trust, and privacy to help better safeguard
cloud computing paradigms for TCPS.

1
New York Institute of Technology (NYIT), Department of Computer Science, USA
2
New York Institute of Technology (NYIT), Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, USA
172 Data security in cloud computing

8.1 Introduction
There are over 1.2 billion vehicles on the roads worldwide, and the number of electric
vehicles passed the 1 million mark in 2015 [1]. Transportation provides the backbone
of the modern society, yet it has also been taking its toll on the environment. Moreover,
traffic accidents have claimed 1.25 million lives every year since 2007, being the top
cause of death among people aged 15–29 years [2]. Transportation is one of the most
important application domains of Cyber-Physical Systems (CPS), which are systems
in which physical components are tightly coupled with cyber components, such as
networking, sensing, computing, and control.
The application of CPS in transportation sector, called transportation CPS
(TCPS), will transform the way people interact with transportation systems, just
as the Internet has transformed the way people interact with information. A desirable
CPS must be safe, secure, and resilient to a variety of unanticipated and rapidly evolv-
ing environments and disturbances in addition to being efficient and inexpensive to
maintain. Today each vehicle is equipped with 70–100 sensors [3]. For instance, one
TCPS application utilizing these sensors will be vehicle prognostics, which will allow
vehicle owners to assess how long the parts in their vehicles will last by the continuous
monitoring and detailed reporting of the state of each part via the on-board prognos-
tics systems [4]. This technique will allow vehicle owners to be more confident that
their cars will not have any issue the next time they are behind the wheels. Moreover,
drivers today can get real-time traffic information and can avoid traffic jams so that
they can predict their schedule precisely. More importantly, the drivers can be alerted
to an accident occurring in front of them by other vehicles or roadside units (RSUs)
nearby so that they can avoid a fatal accident. The drivers can reserve parking spots
ahead of time and can be directed to available parking spots as they become available
in real time [5].
The effective operation of a TCPS is based on data intensive computing. By
using a network of remote servers to store, manage, and process data rather than
a local server or a personal computer, cloud computing has the potential to enable
transportation CPS to operate in a desirable manner.
However, to reap the benefits of cloud computing, there are some challenges
which must be addressed. One of the key challenges in making TCPS and Trans-
portation Cloud Computing (TCC) ubiquitous is keeping the drivers, passengers, and
pedestrians safe and secure, while preserving their privacy.
In addition, TCPS can generally be used to help enhance the safety and efficiency
of the ground transportation system. One such example is the Traffic Estimation and
Prediction System (TrEPS), which generally offers the predictive information that is
required for proactive traffic control [6]. However, sometimes the TrEPS may receive
confusing or even conflicting traffic information reported by multiple traffic sensors,
some of which may have been compromised by attackers. If the trustworthiness of
these traffic sensor data cannot be properly evaluated, then it is possible to result
in traffic jams or even life-threatening accidents because most of the vehicles may
be incorrectly redirected to the same route according to the fake traffic information.
Thus, it is critical to ensure the security and trustworthiness of the TCPS.
 Security, trust, and privacy for cloud computing in TCPS 173

In this chapter, first the general components of TCPS and TCC are introduced.
Then, attack surfaces in TCPS are discussed in depth, followed by the current state-
of-the-art security mechanisms for the TCPS. Later, both trust and privacy techniques
are evaluated against the unique challenges posed in the TCPS context.

8.2 Transportation CPS

8.2.1 Vehicular and transportation networks

Following the introduction and popularity of the Mobile ad-hoc Networks (MANETs),
Vehicular ad-hoc Networks (VANETs) evolved as a unique subset of the MANET,
where vehicles form an ad-hoc network and communicate with other vehicles around
them or to other parties, such as the roadside infrastructures. VANETs are distinguish-
able from other classes of MANETs by the high speeds the vehicles are traveling, the
hybrid node composition, the high dynamic range of node density they exhibit, which
ranges from a single vehicle communicating with the roadside infrastructure at a
rural road with no nearby vehicles for miles, to vehicles in rush-hour traffic in par-
allel streets in a metropolitan area. Other unique VANETs attributes include their
real-time requirements (e.g., emergency stop when approaching at high speed to an
accident on the highway) and their access to robust battery power, computing, and
networking resources.
VANETs are part of the Intelligent Transportation System (ITS). ITS is an overall
architecture to systematically collect and process the data related to transportation
and produced by many sources including the VANETs so that various stakeholders
of transportation systems can make better, data-informed decisions. As a result, the
overall transportation system can become safer and more efficient [7,8].
The Transportation (Vehicular) Clouds promises to provide the strength and flex-
ibility of the cloud computing into the VANETs and ITS in general. In this section,
we look into various networking and communication technologies developed as part
of the VANETs and ITS. In Section 8.8.3, we introduce TCC.

8.2.2 Vehicle-to-everything communication

In TCPS, vehicles need to connect to various parties. The communication between
vehicles and all other entities including other vehicles is generalized as vehicle-to-
everything (V2X) communication. V2X can be further divided into the following
subcategories depending on the parties, which the vehicles communicate:

● Vehicle-to-Vehicle (V2V) Communication

● Vehicle-to-Infrastructure (V2I) Communication
● Vehicle-to-Grid (V2G) Communication
● Vehicle-to-Pedestrian (V2P) Communication
174 Data security in cloud computing

8.2.2.1 Vehicle-to-Vehicle (V2V) Communication

In V2V, vehicles form ad-hoc networks with vehicles around them to share information
such as nearby traffic conditions, and immediate dangers such as an intersection
collusion warning [9].
Vehicles can also provide services to other vehicles. For instance, if two vehicles
desire to communicate on the same highway but are out of radio range from each
other, they can recruit the help of vehicles in between to route their traffic. Cars are
parked 95% of the time [10] and parked cars can be a valuable resource to other cars
(parked or in motion), and to interested third parties. In [11], the authors proposed
Parked Vehicle Assistance (PVA), where they envision using parked cars as static
nodes similar to RSU, however without the high cost of deploying and maintaining
the necessary infrastructure for the RSU. Unlike other cars in the traffic, a parked
car’s location is fixed, and thus the parked cars can be used as a static backbone for
the network, providing network access for both parked and moving vehicles.
For the short-range communication between vehicles and the roadside infrastruc-
ture, Dedicated Short Range Communications (DSRC) is used, which is carried over
the 75 MHz band between 5.85 and 5.925 GHz [9]. The physical and medium access
protocol layers on this band are collectively called as the Wireless Access in Vehicular
Environment (WAVE), which is a combination of IEEE 802.11p-2010) [12] and the
IEEE 1609 protocol suite [13]. Recently, Visible Light Communication (VLC) has
also become a promising alternative [3].

8.2.2.2 Vehicle-to-Infrastructure (V2I) Communication

Using parked cars, other relays (such as mobile phones), or dedicated cellular/Wi-Fi
connectivity built-in the vehicle [14] are promising solutions for providing Internet
connectivity to vehicles. On the other hand, for remote areas with weak cellular
signals, or low traffic density, dedicated roadside infrastructure, a.k.a. RSUs, can
provide robust Internet connectivity, and dedicated sensors for local information.
However, due to their high cost, the widespread use of these RSUs is still limited.

8.2.2.3 Vehicle-to-Grid (V2G) Communication

With the recent growing interest in electrical vehicles (EVs), the demand for electricity
will definitely increase. However, as stated above, a vehicle is parked most of the time,
and the EV has a sizable battery which can be charged in a fraction of the time the EV
is parked. Thus, the EVs can also be considered as a large distributed energy storage
over the power grid, which can be used to supply power to the grid when the demand
is high.
For instance, if an EV has access to real-time power pricing when it is parked
and if it knows approximately how long it will be parked, the EV can decide to buy
or sell power or stay idle thus minimizes, or even eliminates, its power cost [15].

8.2.2.4 Vehicle-to-Pedestrian (V2P) Communication

According to the 2015 Global Status Report on Road Safety by the World Health
Organization, 22% of the road traffic deaths in the world are pedestrian casualties [2].
Thus, research in the area of robust alert systems, which alert the pedestrians and
 Security, trust, and privacy for cloud computing in TCPS 175

Table 8.1 In-vehicular communication technologies

Max. data rate Topology Standards

Controller Area 1 Mbps Multi-master ISO 11898-1 to -6

Network (CAN)
Local Interconnect 20 kbps 1 Master, ISO 17987
Network (LIN) up to 16 slaves
FlexRay 10 Mbps Multi-drop ISO 17458-1 to -5
Star
Hybrid
Media-Oriented 150 Mbps Timing master MOST25, 50, 150
Systems Transport (MOST)

vehicles approaching to pedestrians of an imminent collision between them, is very

important [16,17]. It should also be noted that some solutions such as Pedestrian
Countdown Signals (PCS) are reported to actually increase the number of pedestrian–
vehicle collisions [18]. Other studies reported that pedestrians may be exposed to a
greater danger when crossing under time pressure [19].

8.2.3 Intra-vehicle Communication

Due to conflicting constraints in bandwidth, cost, and licensing requirements, multiple
communication technologies have been proposed for intra-vehicle communication.
Standards for many of these technologies have been developed, and versions and sub-
modules of these standards have been ratified. Table 8.1 summarizes the commonly
used intra-vehicle communication technologies and their key properties.
8.2.3.1 Controller Area Network Bus
Controller Area Network (CAN) bus is the most common communication medium for
intra-vehicle communication. CAN bus is a serial bus. Communication on the CAN
bus is carried via a message-based protocol, where all the messages are broadcast to
all the nodes connected to the bus. CAN bus is a multi-master bus, which means there
is no designated node that arbitrates the bus access. Instead each message carries an
identifier that serves as an indicator of the priority of that particular message in the
network. A critical limitation of CAN bus is its low bandwidth. Recently, the original
developers of the CAN bus, Robert Bosch GmbH, developed a new communication
protocol called CAN with Flexible Data Rate (CAN-FD). CAN-FD allows higher
data rates [20].
8.2.3.2 Local Interconnect Network
Local Interconnect Network (LIN) bus is a low-cost serial sub-bus system for simple
applications such as car seat motors, door locks, and sun roof motors, where full CAN
functionality and bandwidth are not necessary [21]. LIN is a single master, multiple
slave bus. A single CAN device can act as the master for multiple LIN nodes, and act
176 Data security in cloud computing

as a bridge between the CAN and LIN buses. Since LIN hardware can cost much less
than CAN hardware, this topology reduces the overall system cost.

8.2.3.3 Flexray
Flexray [22] was proposed for X-by-wire systems such as steer-by-wire for higher
speed and fault-tolerance. FlexRay is a multi-master bus and it uses Time Division
Multiple Access (TDMA) to assign fixed time slots to each node in the guaran-
teeing bandwidth for each device. FlexRay also has two channels for redundant
communication.

8.2.3.4 Media-Oriented Systems Transport

Media-Oriented Systems Transport (MOST) [23] and similar multimedia bus systems
have been proposed to satisfy the high bandwidth communication requirements of the
recent in-car entertainment systems with high-quality audio and video. MOST has a
single timing master and uses TDMA for its synchronous data communication where
the video and audio is transmitted. It also has an asynchronous mode for sending
larger size blocks, and a control channel.

8.3 Transportation cloud computing

TCC is a new and evolving paradigm to allow various transportation entities to use
the traditional cloud resources made available by third parties, and also to allow the
unique capabilities of these transportation entities to be utilized by third parties. In the
former use, the TCPS is the consumer (customer) for the cloud service. An example
of the TCPS using the cloud resources as consumers is a vehicle getting good-quality
GPS location from a third-party server in the cloud [24]. In the latter use, the TCPS is
the producer. For example, interested third parties can get real-time sensor data for a
specific geographical area of interest from the vehicles and the RSUs in the area. This
information can be indirectly related to the TCPS such as the temperature profile of
the given geographical area [25]. This information can also be directly related such
as the traffic conditions in the area [26]. Note that, in the last case, the TCPS is both
the consumer and the producer.
Cloud offerings involving vehicular systems as consumer and/or providers are
offered as services. The classification for these services in the context of TCC is
given below. Note that, as TCC is an evolving technology, this list is not necessarily
exhaustive.

8.3.1 Transportation cloud computing service taxonomy

The NIST cloud model identifies three service models: Software-as-a-Service (SaaS),
Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS), and Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS). These services
in their basic form can all be considered as IaaS or be defined as part of a SaaS or
PaaS, abstracting the access to the raw resources. For instance, a taxi fleet owner can
collect the sensory data from their vehicles and offer real-time regional information as
 Security, trust, and privacy for cloud computing in TCPS 177

part of a database software offering. Services provided within the transportation cloud
regardless of whether the vehicles are provider, consumer, or both can be classified
into the following categories [27,28]:
8.3.1.1 Network-as-a-Service (NaaS)
Many vehicles today have Wi-Fi and cellular connectivity. Although, they may not
utilize this connectivity all the time at their full capacity. Similarly, RSU can provide
Internet connection to the cars that are passing by or parked as a service. The vehicles
with excess bandwidth they would like to share, and the RSU’s providing Internet
connection can advertise these network resources. Nearby vehicles that are in need of
Internet access can purchase Internet access from these providers. Furthermore, the
vehicle providing Internet connectivity, and the vehicle which needs the connectivity,
may be out of range of each other. In such a case, intermediate vehicles can act as
relays to carry traffic between the provider vehicle and the consumer vehicle, thus
providing another network service [29].
8.3.1.2 Sensing-as-a-Service (S2 aaS)
Today vehicles are equipped with many sensors such as GPS, temperature sensors,
dashboard cameras. The data from these sensors can be useful for nearby users, as
well as any entity who has an Interest for the information related to the geographic
area a vehicle is in, regardless of where the entity is located in the world. For example,
a nearby pedestrian may use his or her mobile phone GPS to get location informa-
tion. However, GPS can drain the phone battery quickly. Instead, the pedestrian can
collaborate with a nearby vehicle with GPS and save power [30].
When news breaks, the media and law enforcement agencies may want to have
eyes on the scene rapidly, but may not have nearby camera crew that they can deploy
quickly. In such a case, these agencies can tap into the dash cam of vehicles in the
area to reach to visual information quickly.
8.3.1.3 Computation-as-a-Service (CaaS)
Intra-vehicle computers from manufactures such as Nexcom, Logic Supply, or
Acrosser have comparable computing power to the desktop computers [3]. Yet, espe-
cially private vehicles are parked most of the time, leaving these resources idle. It
is conceivable that vehicle owners may want to make the computing power in their
vehicles to be made available as part of a CaaS framework.
Similarly, a vehicle may have computational needs that can be offloaded to a more
traditional cloud, where the vehicle is a consumer for the CaaS. Bitam and colleagues
proposed the ITS-Cloud, where conventional cloud computing resources provide the
backbone of the computing services, and the vehicular computing resources (includ-
ing on-board computers as well as the mobile devices in the vehicle, e.g., mobile
phones provide a temporary cloud) [31,32].
8.3.1.4 Storage-as-a-Service (StaaS)
Storage can be required for keeping results of large calculations, multimedia files,
as well as other resources. Unlike other services, storage requirements can be long
term [33], thus their cloud model could be different than other services. Nevertheless,
178 Data security in cloud computing

there are potential applications that StaaS can benefit from. One such example is given
by Yu et al. [34], where the need of StaaS is outlined for Video Surveillance. They
reported that many city buses are equipped with in-bus monitoring high-definition
cameras. These cameras generate large amount of data daily, which is expensive to
store on-board due to disk cost and physical space. These videos are only available to
the decision makers after they are downloaded from the storage on the bus. Yu et al.
proposed to use a roadside cloud, which assigns a virtual machine (VM) with required
storage when a bus passes by a roadside coverage area for storing video files. As the
bus moves from one coverage area to another (i.e., between roadside cloutlets), the
VM is also migrated to the new coverage area. The video can then be requested to be
transferred to a datacenter from the roadside cloutlets as needed.

8.4 TCPS attack surfaces

8.4.1 Modern intra-vehicle data networks and the cloud

This section concentrates on attacks which can be launched against current internal
networks which control car functionality and the plausibility of doing so over the
cloud. The development of intra-vehicle networks in many ways mirrors that of the
early Internet, which was initially conceived as a network of friendly collaborators.
Without having to worry about the presence of malicious actors or vulnerable assets,
early network designers were free to focus on performance and efficiency. Since
everything was intended for sharing, there was no need for attribution or access
control. As the Internet scaled and commercialized, a patchwork of network security
solutions eventually emerged, yet the lack of foresight lingers in the vulnerabilities
of today’s computer networks.
Similarly, intra-vehicle networks were designed under the assumption of a com-
pletely closed system comprised of trustworthy components with no external cloud
connections. Modern cars are controlled by dozens of Electronic Control Units
(ECUs) which communicate via the CAN standard [35]. Before the widespread
availability of personal use wireless networks and mobile devices, gaining access
to a vehicle’s network was considered impractical due to their physical security. Cars
are either moving at high speed or physically secured against theft.
As a result, intra-vehicular networks are designed with even fewer security con-
siderations than the early Internet. Much like the Internet, there is no built-in access
control mechanism in the CAN standard. The Internet Protocol requires source and
destination addresses at a minimum, however, which provides a crude form of attri-
bution. CAN systems, on the other hand, are strictly broadcast, making attribution
all but impossible once access to the network has been gained. Since, any node in
the CAN bus can broadcast messages, it is trivial for a compromised device to jam
the bus by sending spoofed high-priority messages or impersonate any other device
in the network. For cloud applications, where the vehicles can be used for process-
ing or sensing data, a stealth attack can cause modifications in the calculations or
in the recorded data, corrupting the data for the cloud applications. Additionally, the
 Security, trust, and privacy for cloud computing in TCPS 179

interconnectedness of intra-vehicle buses allows controllers of these buses to send

messages to each other extending the impact of vulnerabilities in any one bus system.
Vehicles have long been viewed as valuable assets for their material worth, but
until recently little attention was paid to enhancing the security of vehicles at an infor-
mation level. Most early forms of protection focused on preventing physical theft or
tampering, including electronic theft protection systems and mileage counter protec-
tion measures [36]. This attitude has gradually shifted as more and more computerized
components have been added to cars.
The first microcontroller was added to a vehicle in 1977 when General Motors
utilized one for spark plug timing in its Oldsmobile Toronado models [37]. Since then,
the expansion of processors into other aspects of vehicular systems has transpired at a
precipitous pace, culminating in today’s incredibly complex intra-vehicular systems.
Modern cars of all price levels currently require tens of millions of code and dozens
of microcontrollers to function [37]. This means it is critical to provide information
security as well as physical security to today’s automobiles.
Just as with traditional computer systems, attacks against vehicle data networks
can be classified as local or remote [38,39]. Local attacks are those that require
physical access to a vehicle’s network. Due to the emphasis placed on the physical
security of vehicles and the fact that they are often in rapid motion, launching a direct
physical attack is typically considered to be outside of the scope of vehicle threat
models. However, most realistic models allow for the possibility of indirect physical
access, often assumed to be made through a third party [38]. Such potential avenues
of access include devices which connect to a vehicle via its On-Board Diagnostics
(OBD-II) port, CD player, or media center USB input, or even an audio jack [38].
Although originally intended for trusted access by first-party devices given to
specialized technicians and mechanics, the market for OBD-II tools has opened to
include many third-party devices [40]. This means that the attack surface of the
average vehicle must also be extended to include many third-party devices, making
the coordination of security audits for all potential hardware and software involved
highly impractical.
Furthermore, any vehicle or device with a network connection introduces the
potential for remote system exploitation. According to a 2015 congressional report,
nearly all vehicles currently on the road feature a wireless connection which could
serve as a potential avenue of attack [41]. Remote attacks against vehicular systems
can be further divided into the range of access provided; clearly, the further away
an attack can be carried out from, the stronger the adversary. Short-range access
media include Bluetooth phone and music systems, remote start and entry systems,
RFID access tokens, and 802.11 network connections. Longer-range connections
are typically established using cellular network connections. Note that some attacks
may be hybrid forms which cross these classification boundaries. For instance, an
attack launched remotely across a 4G cellular network against a device connected to
a vehicle’s OBD-II port would involve both indirect physical access and a long-range
wireless connection.
Unfortunately, vehicle and OBD-II device manufacturers are not always forth-
coming to disclose the active wireless connections on a vehicle [41]. Thus, data
180 Data security in cloud computing

transmissions may occur without the vehicle owner’s permission or knowledge. Even
if the owners are aware of such transmissions, it may also be impossible to disable
them without turning off the desirable wireless capability.
It is difficult to gauge the number of incidents in which attacks have occurred
against vehicular networks in the wild due to a dearth of data in part because of
manufacturers’ reluctance to share such information [41]. However, such attacks are
no longer theoretical in nature, having been demonstrated against actual vehicles being
driven on public roadways. In 2013, Miller and Valasek demonstrated that attacks
could be launched against various ECUs over a car’s CAN bus with direct physical
access via an OBD-II interface [42]. This included control over the speedometer,
odometer, onboard navigation, steering, braking, and acceleration [42]. The authors
were also able to modify the firmware of some ECUs [42], raising the possibility of
advanced persistent threats which reside on an intra-vehicular network for a prolonged
period of time. Threats which apply to firmware in general also apply to vehicular
systems [43], with a heightened risk due to safety issues associated with transportation
systems.
Initially, the automotive industry downplayed the impact of security research by
emphasizing the implausibility of the direct physical access which was required. In
2015, Miller and Valasek challenged these claims when they extended their attacks
by carrying them out remotely. In the specific instance tested, access was gained
over a long-range cellular network to a vehicle’s entertainment system, granting them
the same control over critical car systems [44]. The results of this research were
widespread, including a recall of over a million vehicles, lawsuits against cellular
carriers, and the aforementioned congressional report on the current state of insecurity
in vehicular systems [41,44].

8.4.2 Attack surfaces of future cloud-based V2X transportation

networks
The previous section described how the addition of wireless communication channels
to modern vehicles altered their attack surface, causing threats which were previously
dismissed as impractical to be given renewed consideration. This represents only
the beginning of wireless deployments in transportation systems, however. Future
deployments will cause the handful of wireless channels on today’s vehicles to seem
quaint by comparison. Researchers are currently envisioning future transportation
systems in which all vehicles and infrastructure are connected via pervasive wireless
links; such environments are typically referred to as “V2X” systems [45], as described
in Section 8.2.2.
This proliferation of wireless links implies a manyfold increase in the attack
surface of a typical vehicle, as every new connection could potentially be utilized
as an attack vector [46]. Furthermore, many aspects of V2X systems differ from
typical computer networks in ways which add unique challenges. For instance, in
order for RSU and other forms of infrastructure to communicate useful informa-
tion they must be equipped with microcontrollers, sensors, and wireless chips.
To see widespread deployment, these components will have to be as small and
 Security, trust, and privacy for cloud computing in TCPS 181

resource-efficient as possible. From this perspective, V2X systems are subject to

many of the same constraints which “Internet-of-Things” (IoT) security solutions are
subject to, including small amounts of memory and processing power, limited form
factors, low-power radio standards, and limited energy availability [47,48].
Another unique requirement of V2X is their extreme flexibility with respect to
speed and movement. Transportation systems are by nature dynamic and mobile,
while traditional network protocols are not designed with mobility in mind; indeed,
an initial design assumption of the early Internet was that nodes would not move
[49,50]. The speed at which modern transportation systems are expected to move
may complicate handoffs between different network cells and limit opportunities for
executing protocols such as key exchange and session establishment [51]. This, com-
bined with the aforementioned IoT device constraints, necessitates very low overhead
protocols for V2X, which is a barrier to utilizing the kinds of cryptographic solutions
to security found on traditional computer systems [52–54].
Further complicating the attack surface of TCPS systems which utilize remote
services to process, analyze, or coordinate data is the fact that these systems open
themselves to all the security issues which come with cloud services outside the
context of transportation systems. These include data leakage due to improper isola-
tion [55] or other malicious participants [56], potential loss of data availability [57],
web application vulnerabilities [58], and a general lack of control over how data is
handled [59].

8.5 TCPS security mechanisms

The benefits of a TCPS can only be realized if the data collected and shared by partici-
pants is authentic and trustworthy. Establishing trust in a TCPS is therefore paramount.
For existing vehicular networks, this requires the difficult task of designing secure
solutions while retaining compatibility with existing deployments. Fortunately, since
V2X systems are currently emerging as more and more connections are established
between vehicles and roadside assets, there is more room to “bake-in” security into
these systems by applying the lessons learned in other domains. Many of the existing
security solutions for TCPS (in particular, vehicular networks) have been primarily
focusing on applying various cryptographic solutions to secure the system [60–63],
and the trust management as well as privacy protection techniques have not drawn
enough attention to help better secure TCPS. To address this need, in this chapter, we
primarily focus on studying trust management and also privacy protection techniques
to secure TCPS.
Trust is an issue for both intra-vehicle and V2X communication with any potential
TCPS cloud service. However, without being able to judge the veracity of messages
originating from within a vehicle or other transportation asset, it is very difficult to
establish trust in the data the node relays to other parties. Most V2X trust solutions thus
begin with mechanisms for enforcing trust by adding cryptographic authentication
components to intra-vehicle networks. For example, the authors of [64] propose the
use of symmetric key cryptography to sign messages exchanged between ECUs over
182 Data security in cloud computing

the CAN bus by adding hardware security modules to each ECU. To coordinate keys
between different components, an ECU acts as a key manager [64]. On the other hand,
if there exists transportation infrastructure, such as RSUs, traffic sensors, and cam-
eras, then these pre-deployed devices are generally regarded as trusted because they
are connected via wired networks, which are generally better protected and thus much
harder to be tampered or compromised when compared to the vehicles. Thus, in the
presence of the various transportation infrastructure equipments, trust management
will become a viable and indispensable solution to help better secure TCPS.
An alternative approach is to modify the CAN standard by adding new fields
which can be used as indicators of intrusion [65]. In [66], the authors discuss the
requirements for formally verifying trust within an intra-vehicular network, includ-
ing identifying all ECUs, their connections to themselves and cloud providers, and
establishing rules that govern how these entities are allowed to interact.
Under the assumption that the data collected by TCPS nodes is authenticated by
one of the aforementioned techniques, the next step to creating a trustworthy sys-
tem is to authenticate the messages exchanged between participant nodes. There
have been several different proposals as to how to achieve this, including tech-
niques based on asymmetric cryptography [54], group cryptography [67], and timing
synchronization [68].
As mentioned in Section 8.4.2, TCPS systems that connect to the cloud will
be subject to all the additional security considerations that users of cloud services
face in other contexts. Fortunately, there has been a great deal of research attention
provided to developing security solutions for cloud systems. These include distributed
intrusion detection solutions [69,70] and encryption techniques based on identity-
based cryptography [71] or homomorphic ciphers [72].

8.5.1 Trust management for TCPS

In this section, we will review various trust management schemes that have been
proposed for TCPS.

8.5.1.1 Basic Principles of Trust Management

In general, the main goal of trust management is to evaluate different behaviors of
other nodes and build a reputation for each node based on the observations made
for behavior assessment. The reputation can then be utilized to determine trustwor-
thiness for other nodes, make choices on which nodes to cooperate with, and even
punish an untrustworthy node if necessary. The trust management system has been
studied in various self-organized systems, such as ad-hoc networks [40–46], peer-to-
peer systems [47–49], and wireless sensor networks [50,51]. More specifically, trust
management in wireless networks can be utilized in the following three aspects: (1)
node behavior assessment, (2) misbehaving node detection, and (3) proper response
to node misbehaviors.
In practice, the trust management system usually relies on two types of evidences
to evaluate the node behaviors. The first kind of observation is called first-hand
observation, or in other words, direct observation [73]. First-hand observation is the
 Security, trust, and privacy for cloud computing in TCPS 183

observation that is directly made by a node itself, and the first-hand observation can
be collected either passively or actively. If a node promiscuously observes its neigh-
bors’ actions, the local information is collected passively. In contrast, the reputation
management system can also rely on some explicit evidences to assess the neighbor
behaviors, such as an acknowledgment packet during the route discovery process. The
other kind of observation is called second-hand observation or indirect observation.
Second-hand observation is generally obtained by exchanging first-hand observations
with other nodes in the network. The main issues of second-hand observations are
related to overhead, false report and collusion [74,75].
Trust management has been proven to be an important security solution to
cope with various misbehaviors in wireless networks, which act as the primary key
enabling technology for TCPS. Therefore, we will start reviewing the well-known
trust management schemes for wireless networks.

8.5.1.2 Trust Management for Wireless Networks

In [76], Buchegger et al. proposed a protocol, namely CONFIDANT (Cooperation
Of Nodes, Fairness In Dynamic Ad-hoc NeTworks), to encourage the node coop-
eration and punish misbehaving nodes. CONFIDANT has four components in each
node: a Monitor, a Reputation System, a Trust Manager, and a Path Manager. The
Monitor is used to observe and identify abnormal routing behaviors. The Reputation
System calculates the reputation for each node in accordance with its observed behav-
iors. The Trust Manager exchanges alerts with other trust managers regarding node
misbehaviors. The Path Manager maintains path rankings, and properly responds to
various routing messages. A possible drawback of CONFIDANT is that an attacker
may intentionally spread false alerts to other nodes that a node is misbehaving while it
is actually a well-behaved node. Therefore, it is important for a node in CONFIDANT
to validate an alert it receives before it accepts the alert.
Michiardi et al. [77] presented a mechanism with the name CORE to identify
selfish nodes, and then compel them to cooperate in the following routing activities.
Similar to CONFIDANT, CORE uses both a surveillance system and a reputation
system to observe and evaluate node behaviors. Nevertheless, while CONFIDANT
allows nodes exchange both positive and negative observations of their neighbors,
only positive observations are exchanged amongst the nodes in CORE. In this way,
malicious nodes cannot spread fake charges to frame the well-behaved nodes, and
consequently avoid denial of service attacks toward the well-behaved nodes. The
reputation system maintains reputations for each node, and the reputations are adjusted
upon receiving of new evidences. Since selfish nodes reject to cooperate in some
cases, their reputations are lower than other nodes. To encourage node cooperation
and punish selfishness, if a node with low reputation sends a routing request, then the
request will be ignored and the bad reputation node cannot use the network.
Patwardhan et al. [78] studied an approach in which the reputation of a node
is determined by data validation. In this approach, a few nodes, which are named
as Anchor nodes here, are assumed to be pre-authenticated, and thus the data they
provide are regarded as trustworthy. Data can be validated by either agreement among
184 Data security in cloud computing

peers or direct communication with an anchor node. Malicious node can be identified
if the data they present is invalidated by the validation algorithm.
Li et al. [79] proposed a novel trust management scheme for MANETs, in which
the trust of a mobile node is evaluated from multiple perspectives rather than merely
one single trust scalar. More specifically, the proposed scheme evaluates trustwor-
thiness from three perspectives: collaboration trust, behavioral trust, and reference
trust. Different types of observations are used to independently derive values for these
three trust dimensions. This research work was extended in [80], in which declara-
tive policies are used to better evaluate the trust of a mobile nodes under different
environmental factors.
In [81], the authors proposed a cluster-based hierarchical trust management
scheme for wireless sensor networks to effectively deal with selfish or malicious
nodes, in which the authors consider both trust attributes derived from communi-
cation and from social networks to evaluate the overall trust of a sensor node. To
demonstrate the utility of the proposed hierarchical trust management protocol, the
authors apply it to trust-based geographic routing and trust-based intrusion detection.
For each application, the authors identify the best trust composition and formation to
maximize application performance.
He et al. [82] proposed ReTrust, an attack-resistant and lightweight trust manage-
ment approach for medical sensor networks. In this approach, the authors delegate the
trust calculation and management functionality to master nodes (MNs) so that there
will be no additional computational overhead for resource-constrained sensor nodes
(SNs), which is a critical factor for medical sensor networks. Moreover, the authors
also discuss the possibility to use the ReTrust approach to detect and fight against
two types of malicious attacks in medical sensor networks, namely on-off attacks and
bad mouth attacks.
Chen et al. [83] studied a dynamic trust management protocol for secure routing
optimization in delay tolerant networks (DTNs) in the presence of well-behaved,
selfish and malicious nodes, in which the concept of dynamic trust is highlighted in
order to determine and apply the best operational settings at runtime in response to
dynamically changing network conditions to minimize trust bias and to maximize the
routing application performance. Furthermore, the trust-based routing protocol can
effectively trade off message overhead and message delay for a significant gain in
delivery ratio.
In [84], Wei et al. presented a unified trust management scheme that enhances the
security in MANETs that uses recent advances in uncertain reasoning that originated
from the artificial intelligence community. In the proposed trust management scheme,
the trust model has two components: trust from direct observation and trust from
indirect observation. With direct observation from an observer node, the trust value
is derived using Bayesian inference, which is a type of uncertain reasoning when the
full probability model can be defined. On the other hand, with indirect observation,
which is also called secondhand information that is obtained from neighbor nodes of
the observer node, the trust value is derived using the Dempster–Shafer theory (DST),
which is another type of uncertain reasoning when the proposition of interest can be
derived by an indirect method.
 Security, trust, and privacy for cloud computing in TCPS 185

Ren et al. [85] proposed a novel trust management scheme for unattended wireless
sensor networks (UWSNs), which are characterized by long periods of disconnected
operation and fixed or irregular intervals between sink visits. The absence of an
online trusted third party implies that existing WSN trust management schemes are
not applicable to UWSNs. To address this limitation, the authors studied a trust
management scheme for UWSNs to provide efficient and robust trust data storage and
trust generation. For trust data storage, the authors employed a geographic hash table
to identify storage nodes and to significantly decrease storage cost. In addition, the
authors used subjective logic-based consensus techniques to mitigate trust fluctuations
caused by environmental factors. Finally, the authors exploited a set of trust similarity
functions to detect trust outliers and to sustain trust pollution attacks.
In [86], an energy efficient collaborative spectrum sensing (EE-CSS) protocol,
based on trust management, is proposed. The protocol achieves energy efficiency by
reducing the total number of sensing reports exchanged between the honest secondary
users (HSUs) and the secondary user base station (SUBS) in a traditional collaborative
spectrum sensing (T-CSS) protocol.

8.5.1.3 Trust Management for Transportation CPS

Recently, there have been some emerging research efforts which primarily focus on
trust establishment and management for vehicular networks which serve as the key
enabling technology for TCPS.
In general, vehicular networks have their own unique features in addition to the
features which are common to the generalized wireless networks. For instance, the
traveling velocity for nodes in vehicular networks is generally much higher than
those in generalized wireless networks, which makes it even more challenging for
those vehicular nodes to successfully exchange information (such as which nodes are
trustworthy or untrustworthy according to their prior interactions and observations)
before they move out of the wireless communication range between each other [60].
Moreover, the outcome of successful security attacks in vehicular networks is gen-
erally severe or even life-threatening. For example, one compromised vehicle may
transmit false hazard warnings to all neighboring vehicles, which can cause a chaotic
situation such as traffic or even an accident if the false warnings are not properly
handled. Alternatively, a compromised vehicle can forge messages to masquerade
as an emergency vehicle so that it can mislead other vehicles to slow down and
yield [87].
To address these unique challenges in vehicular networks, various trust manage-
ment schemes have been studied in the recent years. In [88], the authors attempt to
address the presence of both malicious and selfish nodes in vehicular networks via
the trust management approach. More specifically, a distributed trust model named
DTM2 was proposed based on the Spence’s Job Market model which was originated
from economics. In this model, a sender node transmits a special signal with the mes-
sage that it wants to send. This signal indicates that the message is authentic for the
potential receivers. The sender node will have to pay a cost to utilize the signal, which
is determined on both the value of the signal and its own behavior. In other words,
the more uncooperative or malicious the behavior of the sender node, the more costly
186 Data security in cloud computing

the signal will be. By this means, the proposed model discourages the sender nodes
from behaving in a malicious fashion. Similarly, cooperation of the sender nodes will
be rewarded proportionally to the signal’s value. This research idea was extended
in [89].
Liao et al. proposed a trust-based approach to decide the likelihood of the accu-
racy of V2V incident reports considering the trustworthiness of the report originator
and those vehicles who have forwarded it [90]. In particular, the approach leverages
the existing V2I communication facilities to collect vehicle behavior information
in a crowdsourcing fashion so as to build a more comprehensive view of vehicle
trustworthiness.
The authors in [91] identified that the problem of information cascading and
oversampling, which are generally common in social networks, also adversely impacts
trust management schemes in VANETs. Moreover, the authors also demonstrated
that simple voting approach for decision making can lead to oversampling and yield
incorrect results in VANETs. To address this issue, the authors proposed a new voting
scheme, in which each vehicle has different voting weight according to its distance
from the event. In other words, the vehicle which is more closer to the event possesses
a higher weight.
In a recent study conducted by Li et al. [92], an attack-resistant trust management
scheme (ART) was proposed for VANETs, in which the trustworthiness in vehicular
networks is separately evaluated in multiple dimensions: data trust is evaluated based
on the data sensed and collected from multiple vehicles; node trust is assessed in two
aspects, i.e., functional trust and recommendation trust, which indicate how likely a
node can fulfill its functionality and how trustworthy the recommendations from a
node for other nodes will be, respectively.

8.5.2 Privacy for TCPS

In addition to safety, security, and trust, privacy is a foremost concern in the design
of TCPS. Drivers have long been accustomed to a modicum of privacy while in their
vehicles. Much as intra-vehicular networks lacked security mechanisms due to the
assumed difficulty of accessing the network medium, as described in Section 8.2.3,
vehicular privacy considerations were taken for granted due to the inherent difficulty
of attacking a moving vehicle. However, with the rich variety of sensors available
to emerging vehicular CPS, steps must be taken to protect the privacy of vehicle
occupants. Although riders of public transportation have reduced expectations of
privacy due to the shared nature of these services, providing privacy safeguards in
these contexts becomes even more critical due to the additional stakeholders involved.
A variety of sensors, both in and outside of vehicles, may compromise user pri-
vacy [93]. TCPS threaten the privacy of transportation networks in two main ways.
First, sensors within a vehicle can be used to eavesdrop on or monitor the vehi-
cle’s occupants. For example, small cameras and microphones included in vehicles
with communication features can be used to capture audio and video of the vehicle’s
occupants. Second, sensors may record information regarding the activity of a driver
which he or she would prefer not to disclose [94]. Geolocation is the most obvious
 Security, trust, and privacy for cloud computing in TCPS 187

form this may take, although other sensor data, such as accelerometers and gyro-
scopes, can also reveal data about a vehicle’s location [95]. Connected vehicles can
also be tracked by their connections to cell towers or wireless access points as they
travel through an environment, providing even better location granularity than GPS
coordinates [96].
Different privacy preservation techniques have been developed which provide
varying degrees of privacy guarantees under differing contexts. Various techniques
involving pseudonym rotations based on vehicle time and location have been proposed
[97]. In [98], threshold authentication is used to preserve the privacy of V2X messages
while still allowing for the possibility of verifying message trustworthiness.
Users of a TCPS may also be tracked based on other devices which they carry,
such as cell phones, laptops, or payment tokens. Transportation payment tokens are
increasingly equipped with short-range wireless capabilities, frequently based on
Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) technology [99]. To protect against informa-
tion leakage by payment tokens, techniques from the field of RFID security can be
applied which utilize contextual sensing to determine when it is safe or unsafe to
transmit data [100–102].
Although it may at first seem that privacy and the public nature of mass transporta-
tion are at odds with one another, cryptographic techniques can be used to provide
riders with privacy assurances. In one such proposed approach, e-cash techniques are
combined with re-authentication to create session tickets which can be used to pay
for transportation services without revealing the identity of the passenger [103].
Once collected, transportation cloud services must also take privacy consid-
erations into account during processing by the backend. Common techniques for
providing privacy assurances include aggregating and masking data [104]; however,
it can be difficult to verify the efficacy of such mechanisms on a third-party system.

8.6 Conclusion
In recent years, we have witnessed a rapid growth to the number of smart and intercon-
nected devices that have been deployed to the transportation systems, such as on-board
sensors equipped in each vehicle, traffic monitoring sensors installed in RSU, and
smart phones carried by pedestrians. All these devices sense the surrounding traffic
and other transportation-related information, some of which will be further processed
using the integrated computational capabilities, and each device will closely inter-
act and exchange information with other devices via the communication links. All
these smart devices together with the transportation infrastructure compose the TCPS,
which has the potential to revolutionize the traditional transportation system.
However, it has also been noted that TCPS is vulnerable to various security
threats. Therefore, it is essential to better secure TCPS. In this chapter, we first
summarize the basic idea of TCPS and how cloud computing plays a role in it. The
attack surface of TCPS is then described in details. We then provide a comprehensive
overview regarding the current state-of-the-art security mechanisms for TCPS. More
188 Data security in cloud computing

specifically, we focus on both trust and privacy techniques which aim at addressing
the unique challenges posed in the TCPS context.
As for the future research directions, we envision that the following research
challenges should be better addressed regarding the security, trust, and privacy issues
in TCPS.

1. What type of trust should be evaluated in the context of TCPS. Traditionally,

we are primarily interested in knowing about the trustworthiness of a node or
device. However, given that the data (such as real-time traffic information) are
also sensitive or even life-dependent in TCPS, we may also need to keep track of
how trustworthy the data are in TCPS. In addition, it is worthwhile to point out
that there may also be some correlations between the data trustworthiness and
device trustworthiness. For example, it is generally the case that the data should
be more trustworthy if it comes from a trustworthy node.
2. How to share data across different administrative domains in TCPS which should
still maintain the security and privacy. It is well understood that TCPS can involve
nodes from various administrative domains, such as vehicle manufacturers, high-
way administration, and travelers. As they belong to different organizations, they
generally have different levels of security and privacy concerns or requirements.
Therefore, it would be impractical to specify one single sharing strategy that
can satisfy all these needs. On the other hand, it may be better to use declar-
ative policies that can properly and accurately capture the security and privacy
requirements that each of them has.

References
[1] Z. Shahan, “1 million electric cars will be on the road in Septem-
ber,” https://cleantechnica.com/2015/08/08/1-million-electric-cars-will-be-
on-the-road-in-september/, accessed: 16-09-2016.
[2] “Global status report on road safety,” World Health Organization, 2015.
[3] S. Abdelhamid, H. S. Hassanein, and G. Takahara, “Vehicle as a resource
(VaaR),” IEEE Network, vol. 29, no. 1, pp. 12–17, January 2015.
[4] B. Fleming, “Advances in automotive electronics,” IEEE Vehicular Technol-
ogy Magazine, pp. 4–13, December 2015.
[5] W. He, G. Yan, and L. D. Xu, “Developing Vehicular Data Cloud Services in
the IoT environment,” IEEE Transactions on Industrial Informatics, vol. 10,
no. 2, pp. 1587–1595, May 2014.
[6] Y. Lin and H. Song, “Dynachina: Real-time traffic estimation and prediction,”
IEEE Pervasive Computing, vol. 4, p. 65, 2006.
[7] G. Karagiannis, O. Altintas, E. Ekici et al., “Vehicular networking: A sur-
vey and tutorial on requirements, architectures, challenges, standards and
solutions,” IEEE Communications Surveys & Tutorials, vol. 13, no. 4,
pp. 584–616, Fourth Quarter 2011.
 Security, trust, and privacy for cloud computing in TCPS 189

[8] J. Zhang, F. Y. Wang, K. Wang, W. H. Lin, X. Xu, and C. Chen, “Data-

driven intelligent transportation systems: A survey,” IEEE Transactions on
Intelligent Transportation Systems, vol. 12, no. 4, pp. 1624–1639, December
2011.
[9] H. Abid, L. T. T. Phuong, J. Wang, S. Lee, and S. Qaisar, “V-Cloud: Vehic-
ular Cyber-physical Systems and Cloud Computing,” in Proceedings of the
4th International Symposium on Applied Sciences in Biomedical and Com-
munication Technologies, ser. ISABEL ’11. Barcelona, Spain: ACM, 2011,
pp. 165:1–165:5.
[10] D. Z. Morris, “Today’s cars are parked 95% of the time,” Fortune Magazine,
March 2016.
[11] N. Liu, M. Liu, W. Lou, G. Chen, and J. Cao, “PVA in VANETs: Stopped
cars are not silent,” in 2011 Proceedings IEEE INFOCOM, Shanghai, China,
2011, pp. 431–435.
[12] “IEEE 802.11p, Amendment 6: Wireless Access in Vehicular Environments,”
July 2010.
[13] “IEEE 1609—Family of Standards for Wireless Access in Vehicular Environ-
ments (WAVE),” September 2009.
[14] G. Araniti, C. Campolo, M. Condoluci, A. Iera, and A. Molinaro, “Lte for
vehicular networking: A survey,” IEEE Communications Magazine, vol. 51,
no. 5, pp. 148–157, May 2013.
[15] G. K. Venayagamoorthy, P. Mitra, K. Corzine, and C. Huston, “Real-time
modeling of distributed plug-in vehicles for v2g transactions,” in 2009 IEEE
Energy Conversion Congress and Exposition, San Jose, CA, USA, September
2009, pp. 3937–3941.
[16] E. Coelingh, A. Eidehall, and M. Bengtsson, “Collision warning with full auto
brake and pedestrian detection—A practical example of automatic emergency
braking,” in Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITSC), 2010 13th Interna-
tional IEEE Conference on, Funchal, Madeira Island, Portugal, September
2010, pp. 155–160.
[17] A. Angelova, A. Krizhevsky, and V. Vanhoucke, “Pedestrian detection with
a large-field-of-view deep network,” in Proceedings of ICRA 2015, Seattle,
WA, USA, 2015.
[18] S. A. Richmond, A. R. Willan, L. Rothman et al., “The impact of pedestrian
countdown signals on pedestrian–motor vehicle collisions: A reanalysis of
data from a quasi-experimental study,” Injury Prevention, 2014;20:155–158.
[19] B. A. Morrongiello, M. Corbett, J. Switzer, and T. Hall, “Using a vir-
tual environment to study pedestrian behaviors: How does time pressure
affect children’s and adults’ street crossing behaviors?” Journal of Pediatric
Psychology, 2015;40(7):697–703.
[20] S. Woo, H. J. Jo, I. S. Kim, and D. H. Lee, “A practical security architecture for
in-vehicle can-fd,” IEEE Transactions on Intelligent Transportation Systems,
vol. 17, no. 8, pp. 2248–2261, August 2016.
[21] ST Microcontroller Division Applications, “LIN (Local Interconnect
Network) Solutions,” Application note AN1278.
190 Data security in cloud computing

[22] “FlexRay Communications System Protocol Specification Version 3.0.1.”

[23] MOST Cooperation, “Multimedia and Control Networking Technology
(MOST) Specification Rev. 3.0 E2,” July 2010.
[24] J. Liu, B. Priyantha, T. Hart, H. S. Ramos, A. A. F. Loureiro, and Q. Wang,
“Energy efficient GPS sensing with cloud offloading,” in Proceedings of the
10thACM Conference on Embedded Network Sensor Systems, ser. SenSys’12.
Toronto, Canada: ACM, 2012, pp. 85–98.
[25] D. Hasenfratz, O. Saukh, C. Walser et al., “Deriving high-resolution urban
air pollution maps using mobile sensor nodes,” Pervasive and Mobile Com-
puting, vol. 16, Part B, pp. 268–285, 2015, selected Papers from the
Twelfth Annual IEEE International Conference on Pervasive Computing and
Communications (PerCom 2014), Budapest, Hungary.
[26] J. Aslam, S. Lim, X. Pan, and D. Rus, “City-scale traffic estimation from
a roving sensor network,” in Proceedings of the 10th ACM Conference on
Embedded Network Sensor Systems, ser. SenSys ’12. Toronto, Canada: ACM,
2012, pp. 141–154.
[27] M. Whaiduzzaman, M. Sookhak, A. Gani, and R. Buyya, “A survey on vehicu-
lar cloud computing,” Journal of Network and ComputerApplications, vol. 40,
pp. 325–344, 2014.
[28] L. Gu, D. Zeng, and S. Guo, “Vehicular cloud computing: A survey,” in 2013
IEEE Globecom Workshops (GC Wkshps), Atlanta, GA, USA, December
2013, pp. 403–407.
[29] S. Olariu, I. Khalil, and M. Abuelela, “Taking vanet to the clouds,” Interna-
tional Journal of Pervasive Computing and Communications, vol. 7, no. 1,
pp. 7–21, 2011.
[30] X. Sheng, J. Tang, X. Xiao, and G. Xue, “Sensing as a service: Challenges,
solutions and future directions,” IEEE Sensors Journal, vol. 13, no. 10,
pp. 3733–3741, October 2013.
[31] S. Bitam and A. Mellouk, “ITS-cloud: Cloud computing for intelligent trans-
portation system,” in Global Communications Conference (GLOBECOM),
2012 IEEE, Anaheim, CA, USA, December 2012, pp. 2054–2059.
[32] S. Bitam, A. Mellouk, and S. Zeadally, “VANET-cloud: A generic cloud
computing model for vehicular Ad Hoc networks,” IEEE Wireless Communi-
cations, vol. 22, no. 1, pp. 96–102, February 2015.
[33] S. Arif, S. Olariu, J. Wang, G. Yan, W. Yang, and I. Khalil, “Datacen-
ter at the airport: Reasoning about time-dependent parking lot occupancy,”
IEEE Transactions on Parallel and Distributed Systems, vol. 23, no. 11,
pp. 2067–2080, November 2012.
[34] R.Yu,Y. Zhang, S. Gjessing, W. Xia, and K.Yang, “Toward cloud-based vehic-
ular networks with efficient resource management,” IEEE Network, vol. 27,
no. 5, pp. 48–55, September 2013.
[35] I. ISO, “Road vehicles—Interchange of digital information—Controller area
network (can) for high speed communication (first edition),” 1898.
[36] A. Weimerskirch, “Do vehicles need data security?” SAE Technical Paper,
Technical Report, 2011.
 Security, trust, and privacy for cloud computing in TCPS 191

[37] R. N. Charette, “This car runs on code,” IEEE Spectrum, vol. 46, no. 3, p. 3,
2009.
[38] S. Checkoway, D. McCoy, B. Kantor et al., “Comprehensive experimental
analyses of automotive attack surfaces,” in USENIX Security Symposium.
San Francisco, CA, USA, 2011.
[39] I. Studnia, V. Nicomette, E. Alata, Y. Deswarte, M. Kaâniche, and
Y. Laarouchi, “Survey on security threats and protection mechanisms in
embedded automotive networks,” in Dependable Systems and Networks Work-
shop (DSN-W), 2013 43rd Annual IEEE/IFIP Conference on. Budapest,
Hungary: IEEE, 2013, pp. 1–12.
[40] “Connected car devices,” http://postscapes.com/connected-car-devices/,
accessed: 10-08-2015.
[41] E. Markey, “Tracking & hacking: Security & privacy gaps put American
drivers at risk,” US Senate, 2015.
[42] C. Miller and C. Valasek, “Adventures in automotive networks and control
units,” DEF CON, Las Vegas, NV, USA, vol. 21, pp. 260–264, 2013.
[43] A. Cui, M. Costello, and S. J. Stolfo, “When firmware modifications attack:
A case study of embedded exploitation.” in NDSS, San Diego, CA, USA,
2013.
[44] C. Miller and C. Valasek, “Remote exploitation of an unaltered passenger
vehicle,” Black Hat USA, Las Vegas, NV, USA, 2015.
[45] N. Lu, N. Cheng, N. Zhang, X. Shen, and J. W. Mark, “Connected vehicles:
Solutions and challenges,” IEEE Internet of Things Journal, vol. 1, no. 4,
pp. 289–299, 2014.
[46] T. Bécsi, S. Aradi, and P. Gáspár, “Security issues and vulnerabilities in
connected car systems,” in Models and Technologies for Intelligent Trans-
portation Systems (MT-ITS), 2015 International Conference on. Budapest,
Hungary: IEEE, 2015, pp. 477–482.
[47] T. Heer, O. Garcia-Morchon, R. Hummen, S. L. Keoh, S. S. Kumar, and
K. Wehrle, “Security challenges in the ip-based internet of things,” Wireless
Personal Communications, vol. 61, no. 3, pp. 527–542, 2011.
[48] S. Raza, H. Shafagh, K. Hewage, R. Hummen, and T. Voigt, “Lithe:
Lightweight secure coap for the internet of things,” IEEE Sensors Journal,
vol. 13, no. 10, pp. 3711–3720, 2013.
[49] D. Le, X. Fu, D. Hogrefe et al., “A review of mobility support paradigms for
the Internet,” IEEE Communications Surveys and Tutorials, vol. 8, no. 1–4,
pp. 38–51, 2006.
[50] W. M. Eddy, “At what layer does mobility belong?” IEEE Communications
Magazine, vol. 42, no. 10, pp. 155–159, 2004.
[51] A. M. Vegni, R. Cusani, and T. Inzerilli, Seamless Connectivity Tech-
niques in Vehicular Ad-hoc Networks. INTECH Open Access Publisher,
2011.
[52] J. J. Blum, A. Eskandarian, and L. J. Hoffman, “Challenges of intervehicle
ad hoc networks,” IEEE Transactions on Intelligent Transportation Systems,
vol. 5, no. 4, pp. 347–351, 2004.
192 Data security in cloud computing

[53] T. L. Willke, P. Tientrakool, and N. F. Maxemchuk, “A survey of inter-vehicle

communication protocols and their applications,” IEEE Communications
Surveys & Tutorials, vol. 11, no. 2, pp. 3–20, 2009.
[54] F. Kargl, P. Papadimitratos, L. Buttyan et al., “Secure vehicular communica-
tion systems: Implementation, performance, and research challenges,” IEEE
Communications Magazine, vol. 46, no. 11, pp. 110–118, 2008.
[55] A. Tripathi and A. Mishra, “Cloud computing security considerations,” in
Signal Processing, Communications and Computing (ICSPCC), 2011 IEEE
International Conference on. Xi’an, Shaanxi, China: IEEE, 2011, pp. 1–5.
[56] Y. Chen, V. Paxson, and R. H. Katz, “What’s new about cloud computing
security,” University of California, Berkeley Report No. UCB/EECS-2010-5
January, vol. 20, no. 2010, pp. 2010–2015, 2010.
[57] A. Juels and A. Oprea, “New approaches to security and availability for cloud
data,” Communications of the ACM, vol. 56, no. 2, pp. 64–73, 2013.
[58] S. Subashini and V. Kavitha, “A survey on security issues in service delivery
models of cloud computing,” Journal of Network and Computer Applications,
vol. 34, no. 1, pp. 1–11, 2011.
[59] D. Zissis and D. Lekkas, “Addressing cloud computing security issues,”
Future Generation Computer Systems, vol. 28, no. 3, pp. 583–592, 2012.
[60] M. Raya and J.-P. Hubaux, “Securing vehicular ad hoc networks,” Journal of
Computer Security, vol. 15, no. 1, pp. 39–68, 2007.
[61] X. Lin, R. Lu, C. Zhang, H. Zhu, P.-H. Ho, and X. Shen, “Security in vehicular
ad hoc networks,” IEEE Communications Magazine, vol. 46, no. 4, pp. 88–95,
2008.
[62] M. N. Mejri, J. Ben-Othman, and M. Hamdi, “Survey on vanet security
challenges and possible cryptographic solutions,” Vehicular Communications,
vol. 1, no. 2, pp. 53–66, 2014.
[63] J. Shao, X. Lin, R. Lu, and C. Zuo, “A threshold anonymous authentication
protocol for vanets,” IEEE Transactions on Vehicular Technology, vol. 65,
no. 3, pp. 1711–1720, 2016.
[64] H. Schweppe, Y. Roudier, B. Weyl, L. Apvrille, and D. Scheuermann, “Car2x
communication: securing the last meter-a cost-effective approach for ensur-
ing trust in car2x applications using in-vehicle symmetric cryptography,” in
Vehicular Technology Conference (VTC Fall), 2011 IEEE. San Francisco, CA,
USA: IEEE, 2011, pp. 1–5.
[65] P. Carsten, T. R. Andel, M. Yampolskiy, J. T. McDonald, and S. Russ, “A sys-
tem to recognize intruders in controller area network (can),” in Proceedings of
the 3rd International Symposium for ICS & SCADA Cyber Security Research.
Ingolstadt, Germany: British Computer Society, 2015, pp. 111–114.
[66] G. Ellison, J. Lacy, D. Maher, Y. Nagao, A. Poonegar, and T. Shamoon, “The
car as an Internet-enabled device, or how to make trusted networked cars,” in
Electric Vehicle Conference (IEVC), Greenville, SC, USA, 2012, pp. 1–8.
[67] J. Guo, J. P. Baugh, and S. Wang, “A group signature based secure and privacy-
preserving vehicular communication framework,” Mobile Networking for
Vehicular Environments, vol. 2007, pp. 103–108, 2007.
 Security, trust, and privacy for cloud computing in TCPS 193

[68] Y.-C. Hu and K. P. Laberteaux, “Strong vanet security on a budget,” in

Proceedings of Workshop on Embedded Security in Cars (ESCAR), Berlin,
Germany, vol. 6, 2006, pp. 1–9.
[69] S. Roschke, F. Cheng, and C. Meinel, “Intrusion detection in the cloud,”
in Dependable, Autonomic and Secure Computing, 2009. DASC’09.
Eighth IEEE International Conference on. Chengdu, China: IEEE, 2009,
pp. 729–734.
[70] S. Whalen, N. Boggs, and S. J. Stolfo, “Model aggregation for distributed
content anomaly detection,” in Proceedings of the 2014 Workshop on Arti-
ficial Intelligent and Security Workshop. Scottsdale, AZ, USA: ACM, 2014,
pp. 61–71.
[71] G. Wang, Q. Liu, and J. Wu, “Hierarchical attribute-based encryption for
fine-grained access control in cloud storage services,” in Proceedings of the
17th ACM Conference on Computer and Communications Security. Chicago,
IL, USA: ACM, 2010, pp. 735–737.
[72] A. López-Alt, E. Tromer, and V. Vaikuntanathan, “On-the-fly multiparty
computation on the cloud via multikey fully homomorphic encryption,”
in Proceedings of the Forty-Fourth Annual ACM Symposium on Theory of
Computing. New York, NY, USA: ACM, 2012, pp. 1219–1234.
[73] S. Buchegger and J.-Y. L. Boudec, “A robust reputation system for mobile
ad-hoc networks,” in Proceedings of P2PEcon, Berkeley, CA, USA, 2003.
[74] Q. He, D. Wu, and P. Khosla, “Sori: A secure and objective reputation-based
incentive scheme for ad-hoc networks,” in Proceedings of 2004 IEEE
Wireless Communications and Networking Conference, WCNC’04, Atlanta,
GA, USA, vol. 2, March 2004, pp. 825–830.
[75] S. Buchegger and J.-Y. L. Boudec, “The effect of rumor spreading in
reputation systems for mobile ad-hoc networks,” in Proceedings of WiOpt
2003: Modeling and Optimization in Mobile, Ad Hoc and Wireless Networks,
Sophia-Antipolis, France, 2003.
[76] S. Buchegger and J.-Y. Le Boudec, “Performance analysis of the confidant
protocol,” in MobiHoc ’02: Proceedings of the 3rd ACM International
Symposium on Mobile ad hoc Networking & Computing. New York, NY,
USA: ACM, 2002, pp. 226–236.
[77] P. Michiardi and R. Molva, “Core: A collaborative reputation mechanism
to enforce node cooperation in mobile ad hoc networks,” in Proceedings
of the IFIP TC6/TC11 Sixth Joint Working Conference on Communications
and Multimedia Security. Deventer, The Netherlands: Kluwer, B.V., 2002,
pp. 107–121.
[78] A. Patwardhan, A. Joshi, T. Finin, and Y. Yesha, “A data intensive reputation
management scheme for vehicular ad hoc networks,” in Proceedings of the
Third Annual International Conference on Mobile and Ubiquitous Systems—
Workshops, Mobiquitous’06, San Jose, California, USA, July 2006,
pp. 1–8.
[79] W. Li, A. Joshi, and T. Finin, “Coping with node misbehaviors in ad hoc
networks: A multi-dimensional trust management approach,” in 2010
194 Data security in cloud computing

Eleventh International Conference on Mobile Data Management, Kansas

City, MO, USA, May 2010, pp. 85–94.
[80] W. Li, A. Joshi, and T. Finin, “Cast: Context-aware security and trust
framework for mobile ad-hoc networks using policies,” Distributed and
Parallel Databases, vol. 31, no. 2, pp. 353–376, 2013.
[81] F. Bao, I. R. Chen, M. Chang, and J. H. Cho, “Hierarchical trust management
for wireless sensor networks and its applications to trust-based routing
and intrusion detection,” IEEE Transactions on Network and Service
Management, vol. 9, no. 2, pp. 169–183, June 2012.
[82] D. He, C. Chen, S. Chan, J. Bu, and A. V. Vasilakos, “Retrust: Attack-
resistant and lightweight trust management for medical sensor networks,”
IEEE Transactions on Information Technology in Biomedicine, vol. 16, no. 4,
pp. 623–632, July 2012.
[83] I. R. Chen, F. Bao, M. Chang, and J. H. Cho, “Dynamic trust management for
delay tolerant networks and its application to secure routing,” IEEE Trans-
actions on Parallel and Distributed Systems, vol. 25, no. 5, pp. 1200–1210,
May 2014.
[84] Z. Wei, H. Tang, F. R. Yu, M. Wang, and P. Mason, “Security enhance-
ments for mobile ad hoc networks with trust management using uncertain
reasoning,” IEEE Transactions on Vehicular Technology, vol. 63, no. 9,
pp. 4647–4658, November 2014.
[85] Y. Ren, V. I. Zadorozhny, V. A. Oleshchuk, and F. Y. Li, “A novel approach
to trust management in unattended wireless sensor networks,” IEEE
Transactions on Mobile Computing, vol. 13, no. 7, pp. 1409–1423,
July 2014.
[86] S. A. Mousavifar and C. Leung, “Energy efficient collaborative spectrum
sensing based on trust management in cognitive radio networks,” IEEE
Transactions on Wireless Communications, vol. 14, no. 4, pp. 1927–1939,
April 2015.
[87] P. Papadimitratos, L. Buttyan, T. Holczer et al., “Secure vehicular communi-
cation systems: Design and architecture,” IEEE Communications Magazine,
vol. 46, no. 11, pp. 100–109, November 2008.
[88] N. Haddadou and A. Rachedi, “Dtm2: Adapting job market signaling for
distributed trust management in vehicular ad hoc networks,” in 2013 IEEE
International Conference on Communications (ICC), Budapest, Hungary,
June 2013, pp. 1827–1832.
[89] N. Haddadou, A. Rachedi, and Y. Ghamri-Doudane, “A job market signaling
scheme for incentive and trust management in vehicular ad hoc networks,”
IEEE Transactions on Vehicular Technology, vol. 64, no. 8, pp. 3657–3674,
August 2015.
[90] C. Liao, J. Chang, I. Lee, and K. K. Venkatasubramanian, “A trust model for
vehicular network-based incident reports,” in Wireless Vehicular Commu-
nications (WiVeC), 2013 IEEE 5th International Symposium on, Dresden,
Germany, June 2013, pp. 1–5.
 Security, trust, and privacy for cloud computing in TCPS 195

[91] Z. Huang, S. Ruj, M. A. Cavenaghi, M. Stojmenovic, and A. Nayak, “A social

network approach to trust management in vanets,” Peer-to-Peer Networking
and Applications, vol. 7, no. 3, pp. 229–242, 2014. [Online]. Available:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s12083-012-0136-8
[92] W. Li and H. Song, “Art: An attack-resistant trust management scheme
for securing vehicular ad hoc networks,” IEEE Transactions on Intelligent
Transportation Systems, vol. 17, no. 4, pp. 960–969, April 2016.
[93] M. Zimmer, “Surveillance, privacy and the ethics of vehicle safety commu-
nication technologies,” Ethics and Information Technology, vol. 7, no. 4, pp.
201–210, 2005.
[94] C. Woodyard and J. O’Donnell, “Your car may be invading your privacy,”
http://www.usatoday.com/story/money/cars/2013/03/24/car-spying-edr-
data-privacy/1991751/, accessed: 05-08-2015.
[95] C. Karatas, L. Liu, H. Li et al., “Leveraging wearables for steering and driver
tracking,” in International Conference on Computer Communications. San
Francisco, CA, USA, IEEE, 2016.
[96] I. A. Junglas and R. T. Watson, “Location-based services,” Communications
of the ACM, vol. 51, no. 3, pp. 65–69, 2008.
[97] D. Eckhoff, R. German, C. Sommer et al., “Slotswap: Strong and
affordable location privacy in intelligent transportation systems,” IEEE
Communications Magazine, vol. 49, no. 11, pp. 126–133, 2011.
[98] Q. Wu, J. Domingo-Ferrer, and U. González-Nicolás, “Balanced trustwor-
thiness, safety, and privacy in vehicle-to-vehicle communications,” IEEE
Transactions on Vehicular Technology, vol. 59, no. 2, pp. 559–573, 2010.
[99] J. Gifford, “Rfid applications in transportation operations,” in Research
Opportunities in Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) Transportation
Applications Conference, Washington DC, USA, 2006.
[100] T. Halevi, S. Lin, D. Ma et al., “Sensing-enabled defenses to rfid unauthorized
reading and relay attacks without changing the usage model,” in Pervasive
Computing and Communications (PerCom), 2012 IEEE International
Conference on. Lugano, Switzerland: IEEE, 2012, pp. 227–234.
[101] T. Halevi, H. Li, D. Ma, N. Saxena, J. Voris, and T. Xiang, “Context-aware
defenses to rfid unauthorized reading and relay attacks,” IEEE Transactions
on Emerging Topics in Computing, vol. 1, no. 2, pp. 307–318, 2013.
[102] N. Saxena and J. Voris, “Still and silent: Motion detection for enhanced rfid
security and privacy without changing the usage model,” in International
Workshop on Radio Frequency Identification: Security and Privacy Issues.
Istanbul, Turkey: Springer, 2010, pp. 2–21.
[103] T. S. Heydt-Benjamin, H.-J. Chae, B. Defend, and K. Fu, “Privacy for
public transportation,” in International Workshop on Privacy Enhancing
Technologies. Cambridge, UK: Springer, 2006, pp. 1–19.
[104] R. N. Fries, M. R. Gahrooei, M. Chowdhury, and A. J. Conway, “Meeting pri-
vacy challenges while advancing intelligent transportation systems,” Trans-
portation Research Part C: Emerging Technologies, vol. 25, pp. 34–45, 2012.
This page intentionally left blank
 Chapter 9
Review of data leakage attack techniques
in cloud systems
Zirak Allaf1 and Mo Adda1

Abstract
Manipulating and delivering data in heterogeneous environments such as those
underlying cloud systems is a critical task because of confidentiality issues. Cloud
technology remains vulnerable to data leakage attacks due to its applications in gath-
ering information about multiple independent entities (e.g. end users and VMs) and
sharing cloud resources. Furthermore, the number of threats are increased when
the cloud users are using cloud computing services compared to PC users, due to
loss of control, privacy and outsourced data storage. Consequently, hackers exploit
security vulnerabilities to launch attacks to take advantage of sensitive data such as
secret keys.
When data is manipulated and shared between different parties in cloud systems,
it will be vulnerable to threats in cloud systems. This chapter explores data vulnera-
bility throughout its life cycle to categorise existing data leakage attack techniques in
terms of where they can be implemented and what can be stolen in this untrusted envi-
ronment, and also classifies data leakage attack techniques according to the type of
data, such as files and secret keys. Furthermore, this study explores core technologies
upon which cloud computing is built, such as the web, virtualisation and cryptog-
raphy, and their vulnerabilities prone to such attacks. We also propose existing data
leakage detection and protection techniques to mitigate and alleviate such attacks.

9.1 Introduction
Cloud computing is a new model of client server paradigm that uses Internet services
to enable a number of technologies offering better solutions to end users without
a required knowledge for any of these technologies and services. The richness of
various models in cloud computing makes it a ubiquitous computational environment,
wherein cloud users can access cloud services anywhere, at any time through the
Internet. Moreover, boosting hardware resources on demand and improving flexibility

1
School of Computing, University of Portsmouth, UK
198 Data security in cloud computing

to respond quickly to requirements without IT management efforts. However, this

leads to the introduction of threats to the shared resources in cloud systems.
Cloud computing offers hardware and software services to its cloud consumers
to organise and maintain availability to continue to meet their needs. However, the
usefulness and various access techniques of cloud models cannot be a suitable solution
to guarantee the maintenance of data integration and protection, especially when the
data is manipulated and outsourced in an undisclosed location by a third party (cloud
providers) outside the owner’s control. Thus, security is the major requirement in
cloud infrastructure, and data in particular is a critical asset that is vulnerable to data
leakage attacks.
This chapter studies major known hardware and software vulnerabilities which
lead to data leakage attacks and their countermeasures. In this chapter, we discuss
the critical characteristics of how attackers exploit the hardware and software char-
acteristics of on-board resources in their attack and introduce a comparison, mainly
concerning data leakage attack techniques, especially targeting credential data (e.g.
cryptographic keys). This chapter is structured as follows: in Section 9.2, we describe
data state, and Section 9.3 demonstrates the core technologies that are utilised in the
cloud and their vulnerabilities prone to such attack. In Sections 9.4 and 9.5, we clas-
sify recent data leakage attack techniques, mitigation, and countermeasures, followed
by the conclusion.

9.2 Data state and vulnerabilities

While data is obviously an important asset to organisations, it is necessary to clarify
what it exactly constitutes in a computational environment to grasp the concept of data
leakage attack in terms of the type, size or state of data being compromised. Shabtai
et al. [37] classified the state of data in its process life cycle into three states: Data-
At-Rest (DAR), Data-In-Motion (DIM) and Data-In-Use (DIU) in computer systems.
These categorisations reflect the states of data from the time it is created/stored, pro-
cessed through computational resources, such as CPU components and main memory
and transmitted over cloud systems. It is represented differently while reposing in
hardware resources such as files, memory contents and network packets. In recent
years, data leakage attacks have been achieved on all data states [9,36,41,56] as is
shown in Table 9.1. In the following subsections, we will explain data states and pos-
sible threats to each state and will focus on data leakage attack while the data state
is DIU.

9.2.1 Data-At-Rest
In this state, data is stored in storage devices. In computer systems, the internal hard
disk of a computer is a permanent storage for data; DAR is a representation of data
when it is stored in such devices. In cloud computing, there is a concern about the
location transparency of data due to the complexity of the cloud infrastructure being
hidden from cloud consumers; cloud consumers do not know where their data is or
 Review of data leakage attack techniques in cloud systems 199

has been stored. This disruption causes hesitancy among organisations considering
involvement in cloud systems, worrying about who deals with sensitive data. More-
over, consumers are also worried about malicious insiders who co-locate on the same
storage. Ristenpart et al. [36] proposed a hard disk-based convert channel attack
against arbitrary VMs on Amazon EC2. They successfully identified cloud storage
co-residency and transmitted data between the VMs when they were accessing the
same storage devices.
Another concern about large files, due to limited space in main memory, is that
the OS loads a portion of the file in contiguous pages in main memory, and the rest
remains on the storage device of the system (it is coordinated with the same physical
addresses that it – the file – originated from). Bernstein [6] exploited this feature
to construct a covert channel attack to identify which parts of the file have already
been loaded and those still on the disk by time variation. Accessing those parts of the
file that have been accessed recently takes shorter time than those that have not been
touched.

9.2.2 Data-In-Motion
DIM describes the transfer of data over networks, which is delivered from a source to
a destination. Data will be at risk in this media due to eavesdropping attack, which is
able to inspect packets. Cryptographic technology have been used to protect the data
such as Secure Shell (SSH). However, such protection techniques are still vulnerable
to information leakage attack. Song et al. [40] showed a possible leakage attack against
network packages; particularly, when they are currying credential information and
moving through SSH. The authors developed a Hidden Markov Model (HMM) and
key sequence prediction algorithm to guess correct pressed keys, which forms the
password, by victim.
In cloud systems, Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) enables web technology to
deliver applications as a service to end users. The data in this state represent
request/response between client and server while they communicate. The data needs
to be protected by encrypting it from eavesdropping attack. However, this does not
stop attackers from malicious intentions, they can still analyse pocket size and timing
to leak sensitive information [9].

9.2.3 Data-In-Use
In a DIU state, data is loaded into computational resources (mainly CPU components
such as registers, caches and main memory). Generally, to load data from storage
devices to CPU registers, it must pass through several hierarchical buffers, includ-
ing main memory and CPU caches (L1, L2 and L3) prior to reaching the registers,
where it is primed for operations such as read and write. According to the applica-
tions, data might have different alignment and organisations while loading into main
memory regarding the data types, such as array, list, linked list, class and structure.
In a multitasking environment, physical resources are shared between processes in
different layers, such as OS (page sharing) and application (shared libraries), the data
frequently being used by those resources; therefore, the OS alternates the processes
200 Data security in cloud computing

in using those resources in the case that a region of memory is shared between pro-
cesses, such as buffer lookup table in AES [6]. Recent work has shown vulnerabilities
of DIU in multitasking systems in both layers’OS (page sharing) [12,42], the achieved
memory deduplication attack and Application (shared library).

9.3 Core technology vulnerabilities in cloud computing

Cloud computing has emerged from existing technologies, mainly such as the web,
cryptography and virtualisation to offer best solutions to companies, organisations
and enterprises. These technologies can cover a wide range and variety of application
domains, such as education, health sector, social networks, governments, on-line
shopping. However, when two or more technologies contribute in handling data in
the cloud, this will introduce vulnerabilities that attackers can exploit to achieve
malicious intent to steal data. We list the common technologies in the cloud that have
been compromised for data leakage attacks.

9.3.1 Web technology

In the SaaS model, web technology is enabled to deliver application as a service
to web clients. Web technology is a client/server paradigm to provide communi-
cations through networks. Today, most desktop applications have been transferred
to web application due to the ease and low cost of installation, user-friendly inter-
face, no client update required, an independent platform and undergoing continuous
technological enhancement. However, end users only need to install a web browser
application to communicate with the server. This communication is carried out
through networks, which might reveal sensitive information such as application states
and state-transits. This information needs to be protected against network sniffers by
utilising encryption techniques. However, this does not stop attackers from stealing
information. Chen et al. [9] showed that leaking sensitive information is still viable.

9.3.2 Virtualisation technology

Virtualisation technology (VT) abstracts hardware resources (CPU, RAM, IO and
network) to create multiple virtual machines (VMs) with hardware virtualisation fea-
tures, each of which is represented independently in the system. Moreover, each VM
runs on top of an additional layer called hypervisor. Key responsibilities of the layer
are monitoring and managing shared resources between VMs through sandboxing
technique. This to amplify a small number of hardware resources to serve a large
number of VMs. The sharing memory technique is widely used in software industries
to improve memory efficiency, such as Kernel Same Page (KSP) in KVM. However,
it has a significant impact on the system security, particularly data leakage attacks.
Through this, opportunities for building hidden communication channels will arise.
This provides malicious VMs ability to take advantage of exploiting hardware vulnera-
bilities, which leads to information leakage, wherein data exchange will be performed
 Review of data leakage attack techniques in cloud systems 201

through unauthorised processes. This technology incorporates security threats, par-

ticularly susceptibility to data leakage attacks. In this subsection, we focus on the
features that are prone to such attacks, such as resource sharing, and more details are
provided in the subsequent sections.

9.3.3 Cryptography
Cryptography can be considered as a set of algorithms which primarily relies on math-
ematical theories with computational supports to be practised in computer systems. It
is widely used in various domains as a data protection solution from malicious parties
who intend to steal interesting information. It can be used by OS or application layers
and for different purposes, such as email services, health records, banking.
It can be an OS level solution to protect data by storing encrypted data on physical
storage devices. In modern OS settings, during OS installation, one of the optional
steps is asking to encrypt user files before storing them on the internal storage device
during the use of the OS. In cloud systems, this is good for cloud consumers because
they are worried about storage location transparency. Moreover, it can be used at
application level on top of OS level. Particularly in web applications, software indus-
tries integrate cryptographic algorithms with page contents to encrypt any data that
exchanges between client/server for any request/response. This is to protect data from
eavesdropping [9]. This can be useful in the cloud when Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS)
becomes mainstream to deliver enterprise applications through web technology to web
users.
Although cryptography has widely been used in computer and cloud systems, it is
still vulnerable to information leakage attacks. In this chapter, we focus on side/covert
channel attacks, in computer and cloud systems, such attacks attempt to gain sensitive
information, such as secret keys against cryptographic algorithms. The attacks take
advantage of software implementation and hardware architecture vulnerabilities or a
combination of both, rather than attacking underlying implementation of the algo-
rithms or brute force attacks. For instance, brute force attacks rely on guesswork,
wherein the attackers attempt a list of keys or passwords to find the right one.

9.4 Side and covert channel attack classification

Information leakage channel-based attack is an action of exploiting hardware and
software vulnerabilities to provide unauthorised communications between two pro-
cesses, in either a virtualised or non-virtualised environment, which are sharing the
same physical resources.
Studies in recent years have shown that information leakage channel-based
attacks are prevalently targeting cryptosystems by exploiting improper utilisation of
physical resources in a shared environment and poor software implementation. The
key role in motivating attackers to target cryptosystems is their essential usage in a
client/server and cloud environment to protect data (as mentioned in Section 9.3.3)
while it is moving through untrusted communication channels and is processing in
202 Data security in cloud computing

an untrusted computational environment. Because these environments rely heavily

on co-residency and sharing features, this affords opportunity to the attackers to have
a good chance of being a neighbour of its victim with a virtual isolation, which is
vulnerable to computational analysis.

9.4.1 Targeted data types

Recent studies showed that side and covert channel attacks have targeted different
types of data. The following shows the most attractive data by attackers.
9.4.1.1 Cryptographic keys
Keys are sets of letters or symbols to form a string that can be combined with plain
text through cryptographic algorithms to produce cipher text and vice versa. It is
the core source of cryptographic operations’ encryption and decryption. The size of
cryptographic keys varies: 64, 128, 256 bits, etc. In case of choosing short keys, Brute
Force attacks can be conducted, because in a modern CPU with a large number of
cores, it might be possible to find the right key by checking the maximum possible
keys in reasonable time. However, long keys, even with modern CPUs, will take a
very long time (e.g. to crack a 128-bit AES key takes 150 trillion years [34]).
There are different types of keys and their utilisation depends on the nature of the
algorithms. In AES, the algorithm uses a secret key for encryption and decryption,
However, in the RSA algorithm, two keys, private and public keys, are required,
one for encryption and one for decryption. When an encryption algorithm starts
combining a key with plain text to generate cipher text, it meets a sequential number of
mathematical operations (e.g. division, multiplication and mode). The attackers take
advantage of these operations, because they can clearly degrade CPU performance
during cryptographic operations.
9.4.1.2 Files
Ubiquitous features in the cloud (such as shared storage method and synchronisation
services) cause cloud users to habitually store their documents remotely on untrusted
storage out of end users’ control, such as Dropbox, Google Drive and SkyDrive,
particularly sharing similar data methods [10]. Such shared characteristics can be
found in web-based applications and will be delivered through PaaS. Authors have
addressed the weakness of the implementation of the web applications, which leads to
data leakage attack. References [35,36,53,55] used a file on a shared storage between
spy and victim processes to build a covert channel attack.

9.4.2 Source of leakage

There are a number of characteristics offered by cloud technologies to offer high-
quality services, such as resource pooling, multi-tenancy and rapid elasticity [29].
However, they are vulnerable to information leakage attacks, particularly resource
sharing features, which are fundamental for cloud computing to gain sufficient perfor-
mance to lease sufficient number of cloud tenants. Consequently, studies have shown
that this feature is prevalently exploited by attackers for their malicious intentions.
 Review of data leakage attack techniques in cloud systems 203

Stealing sensitive data is possible at all data states (DAR, DIP and DIT) (see
Table 9.1) as they all have special consideration and techniques to achieve the attacks.
Data in multitasking/users’ systems can be processed by different resources, such as
CPU caches, memory, storage and network media. Each media has its own charac-
teristics on which the attackers rely during experiments. So, it is crucial to focus on
the common features that have already been exploited by previous studies.

9.4.2.1 CPU architecture

Past studies showed that CPU is the most targeted resources by attackers. It is the
main physical resource in computational models due to interconnection with on-board
resources such as main memory and IO devices through buses. Modern CPUs have
multiple cores to offer more efficient performance and facilitate to accommodate a
sufficient number of programs concurrently. Each core represents a logical isolated
processor inside the CPU die. The CPU has different cache levels.
In computer systems, the size and speed of memories are ordered from small
and high to large and slow (e.g. registers, L1, L2, L3 and main memory). The basic
function of CPU caches is to buffer data requested from the main memory, due to
the trade-off performance between fast-to-slow and small-to-large memories supply
the CPU when it is operating on the requested data. Each core can have its own L1
and L2 caches, or only L1 privately, while L2 is shared between two or more cores,
depending on the CPU architecture design, and cores from L3 and above are shared
for all CPU cores. Ge et al. [11] demonstrated modern microprocessors’ architecture
and their compromising to information leakage attacks in fine-grained details.
CPU cache is the main source of information that attackers relay on to perform
side and covert channel attacks. By reviewing such attacks since last 15 years, it
can be noticed that the attackers utilised one of the cache levels as primary commu-
nication channel between two processes (attack and victim) that provides the state
of the victim process unintentionally. Earlier attacks targeted L1 and L2 cache as
communication channels between attack and victim processes, which reside on the
same core. However, core migration makes noise to the measurement when operating
system alternates assigning processes to a core [60]. Researchers then continued to
explore faster and higher bitrate attacks against L1 in cross-core settings. Until 2014,
unified cache L3 has gained most of the attention due to higher resolution with less
time required to recover sensitive information [56].

9.4.2.2 Timing
Most of the published side and covert channel attacks relied on timing to achieve the
attacks. The attackers are interested in hardware activities at granularity level such
as number of cycles to access a single cache line in L1 cache. They utilise timing to
measure cache accesses, using own data, to synchronise with victim’s data on the same
cache in shared hardware settings. Modern processors such as Intel, which has offered
a hardware support, is a special counter register, for timing with a high resolution for
every operation. At the same time, Intel offers Read Time Stamp Counter (RDTSC)
204 Data security in cloud computing

instruction to read value of the counter register.1 The attackers use RDTSC instruction
to measure cache accesses, using own data, to synchronise with victim’s data on the
same cache. The utilisation of RDTSC has been proposed in attack implementation
code by different techniques such as prime+prob [28,35] and flush+reload [56].
9.4.2.3 CPU power consumption
Attackers monitor CPU power consumption activities over time to deduce mathemat-
ical operations, such as multiplication and division which use more CPU components
than add and subtraction operations. This information will be beneficial for attackers
who are targeting cryptographic algorithms to extract secret keys. This is because
when a computer is running cryptographic algorithms, CPU executes a series of mul-
tiplications and divisions which causes the CPU to consume more power. The attacker
then analyses the variation of the power consumption to deduce some or all of the
secret key bits. This chapter will not be focusing on that feature [5,50].
9.4.2.4 Page sharing
Memory page sharing is a notable technique which is the predominant method used in
memory management systems to reclaim memory. This technique is widely utilised
in OSs and hypervisors, such as KVM KSP [4] and ESX Transparent Page Sharing
(TPS) [45]. In this technique, the OS or hypervisor scans memory pages to find
identical pages (same contents), in every specific period of time, to maintain only
one copy of the pages and remove identical ones [32,47]. In virtualisation, when a
hypervisor runs multiple VMs of the same OS, it can reclaim a sufficient memory.
Alto et al. [46] statistically showed that more than 40% of memory can be saved when
10 VMs are running.
For instance, let’s assume that a file with 10 pages are shared by two VMs
(VM1 and VM2); when VM1 makes modifications on two pages, a copy-on-write
mechanism will take place by OS, which creates two private copies of the pages and
refers them to the VM1. VM2 no longer has access to the VM1’s private copies.
So, each VM has two private and eight shared pages. VM1 can observe a variation in
writing time between shared and private pages. Writing on shared pages is longer than
private pages. As the result, previous studies have shown how this feature has been
exploited by covert channel attackers in computer [49] and cloud systems [7,42,53].
9.4.2.5 Shared library
Shared libraries are code that is compiled in a way that other programs can link with
it during run-time. As a shared library is loaded into memory, the same memory
locations are shared with multiple programs which are linked with it. This saves
memory space; instead of having multiple copies for each program, only one copy
will be utilised. Another advantage is that it is easy to maintain; any modification on
the library does not affect the linked programs, and all the programs have the most
recent version of the library once it is loaded.

1
RDTSC is an assembly instruction, and it can be used in C and C++ in-line assembly. For more detail on
how to use RDTSC in modern Intel CPUs, see [33].
 Review of data leakage attack techniques in cloud systems 205

However, shared libraries are another factor to provide shared variables between
independent processes. This has a negative impact on data protection. The most visible
vulnerability against shared libraries in past and recent studies is the usage of OpenSSL
implementation of AES [6,60], which provides a dynamic shared library libcrypto,
so as to be linked with multiple programs in UNIX-based OSs. AES utilises a lookup
or S-Box table, which is an array of values that will be used during the encryption
rounds. When a victim uses this table during encryption, an attacker can observe
recently accessed elements from the lookup table by the victim.

9.4.3 Types of channel attacks

In recent years, side and covert channel attacks have been practised as two common
types of information leakage attacks; they target hierarchical memory accesses by
analysing time variations of the accesses. These two types of attacks are similar in
achievements, except a covert channel attack is broader than a side channel attack
technique, which can be deployed in various layers, such as network [20,38], OS
[21], I/O [36,39] and application [12]. On the other hand, side channel attack is used
specifically against cryptosystems to retrieve cryptographic keys by utilising CPU
components.

9.4.3.1 Covert-channel attacks

This notion dates back to late 1969 and the pioneering work of Lampson [26]. He
described the possibility of creating intended communication channels between two
processes to exchange information. The insider process (has privilege) transmits
information (state of the process) indirectly through other means, such as hardware
contention, to spy process (has no privilege) on shared resources. This can occur
in different layers with different bitrate transmission, such as OS [55], CPU cache
[36], virtual memory (pages) [22], network packets [52]. This attack bypasses system
security such as firewall and Intrusion Detection System (IDS) because it is hidden to
access control mechanisms. Covert channel attack limitations are having low bit-rate
and being expensive to set up.
In 2005, [35] examined covert channel attack in both L1 and L2 cache with
bitrate 200 and 100 kps, respectively, in native system. Based on the experiment,
he emphasised that L2 covert channel attack is more practical than L1, because L1
is noisier than L2 due to process core migrations. A year later, Wang and Lee [49]
introduced an approach to build a covert channel SMT/FU whereby the attacker
addressed OS vulnerability, shared pool of Functional Unit FU, to interfere with the
victim’s process.
In 2009, when cloud computing came to the stage, Ristenpart et al. [36] intro-
duced the first practical high-level covert channel attack against CPU component L2
cache with a very low bitrate, 0.2 bps. Then, in 2011, Xu et al. [55] deepened the study
to improve the bitrate to 3 bps by exploiting memory bus. Then, in 2015, Maurice
et al. [28] showed the barrier of limiting bitrate between two processes in a covert
channel attack in addressing uncertainty due to more frequent core migration. They
206 Data security in cloud computing

utilised inclusive cache L3 to overcome this issue and their result surprisingly showed
higher than previous attacks, namely 751 bps with the same attack settings.

9.4.3.2 Side-channel attacks

Side channel attack is mounted against cryptosystems to extract secret keys by the
means of sources that provide interesting information rather than Brute Force attacks
or attacks against mathematical implementation of the algorithms, wherein attackers
rely on deducing the secret keys used by the victim. The popular algorithms paid
attention to by researchers in the past decade are RSA [1,56], AES [31] , DES [2].
Attackers monitor shared resources to collect fine-grain information to identify the
targeted data usage by victims. The attacker does not need privilege to yield the
information, and the resources sharing will be enough to meet the attack’s require-
ments. Side channel attack is classified into three classes: time-driven, trace-driven
and access-driven [17,60].
In last 15 years, a large number of side channel attacks, those which rely on CPU
caches (L1, L2 and L3 or LLC) to extract cryptographic keys, have been extensively
studied and successfully practised on native and cloud systems. They have analysed
the time access variations by tracing CPU cache utilisation.
The first practical attack against cryptographic algorithm DES was in 2003, and
was proposed by Tsunoo et al. [44]. They retrieved about 90% of the secret key by
taking approximately 1023 samples.
In 2005, AES algorithm became a target of researchers. It was first practised by
Bernstein [6] in which the attacker remotely analysed the overall execution time of the
algorithm. In addition, he published the full implementation of the attack. This attack
was extended and refined in 2007 by Neve et al. [30]. They addressed the limitation
in Bernstein’s attack, as a result of which they were able to retrieve the entire key bits
with fewer samples.
Further, Gullasch et al. [17] developed a cache channel attack to recover the
full key bits in AES in native settings. The attacker recorded cache activities for
approximately 2.8 s about 100 encryption calls. They were first attacked compressed
lookup table. Moreover, in the improvement of Bernstein’s side channel attack in 2013
by Aly and ElGayyar [3], the authors reproduced the attack on modern CPUs with
the latest version of AES.
With the popularity of the cloud computing phenomenon, the use of cryptography
increasingly rose due to its heterogeneousness. From that point onwards, researchers
have been focusing on addressing the weaknesses of logical isolation between cloud
entities on the same physical machine. Ristenpart et al. [36] were the first in practically
addressing internal hardware vulnerabilities in Amazon EC2 cloud systems. Their
proposed attacks were in high level and low resolution. In 2012, Zhang et al. [60]
dramatically improved the resolution of the attack by utilising L1. However, in 2014,
Yarom and Falkner [56] introduced a surprisingly high-resolution side channel attack
utilising L3 with unrelated processes (each assigned on a different core). Since then,
LLC has become the most targeted hardware that attackers rely on to extract secret
keys [13,22].
 Review of data leakage attack techniques in cloud systems 207

9.4.4 Techniques
Time+Evict (TE) [31,43]: In this technique, it is assumed that a shared library is
linked to both attacker and victim program concurrently such as lookup table in AES.
They both have access to the lookup table. The attacker monitors cache line(s) that
are synchronised with the array.2 The attacker first finds the average time taken for
one encryption, then triggers the encryption function and evicts cache lines, that have
already touched the array. After the eviction, the attacker triggers a series of encryption
and measures them. If any encryption call takes longer than the average time, it
indicates that the evicted cache line(s) has(ve) been accessed recently by the victim.
Prime+Probe (PP) [28,60]: In this technique, an attacker process monitors
victim process by filling the CPU cache (unified cache such as L3 or LLC between
them) with its data. This is to check which attacker’s cache lines have been evicted by
the victim’s data. To do that, the attacker process utilises a busy loop that sleeps for a
specific time with each iteration to wake the attacker process up and measure variation
of access time to its cache lines. Longer time indicates the cache line is evicted by
the victim and needs to be loaded from a higher memory level. This technique can be
applied in all memory levels.
Flush+Reload (FR) [17,56]: This technique is the inverse of prime+probe. Both
the attacker and the victim should have access to the same data concurrently; this is a
feature of shared library as is referred to in Section 9.4.2.5. The attacker targets a range
of addresses in a shared library, which is loaded in to the main memory, and flushes
one or more cache line(s) which is referenced in the address range. The attacker needs
to be sure that the cache lines(s) have been removed from the cache hierarchy (L1, L2,
and L3). After the flush, the attacker waits until the victim accesses some data in the
address range. When the victim attempts to access the flushed cache line(s), he must
access them in main memory, due to the flush performed by the attacker. Finally, the
attacker scans and encodes the time accesses; shorter time indicates the cache line(s)
have been recently accessed by the victim.
Flush+Flush (FF) [13,14]: This attack technique is composed of two flushes.
This attack defers from flush+reload technique by avoiding reload stage, which causes
the cache to be free of misses. Thus detections, which rely on cache misses, of such
attack will be difficult. In this technique, the attacker relies on time variation of series
flush in instruction rather than monitoring cache line accesses.

9.4.5 A generic attack model

As mentioned earlier, several attack techniques have been widely used in leaking
sensitive data in cloud systems. They are similar in achieving these techniques with
exception of having different system settings and CPU architecture for their utilisation.
As mentioned earlier, covert and side channel attacks provide an ability to
attackers by transferring the underlying hardware activities, such as measuring time
variation of memory accesses to high level. This is the core mechanism of such attacks,
which allows the attackers to infer victim propriety through a resource sharing feature.

2
The lookup table is represented as an array when it is loaded into main memory.
208 Data security in cloud computing

In the following, we describe a generic attack model in cloud systems and general
steps to achieve such attacks. In addition, we historically show the previous attacks,
over the last 15 years, against various shared resources.
In the earlier sections, the vulnerabilities of cloud components which might lead
to the occurrence of data leakage attacks were demonstrated. The achievement of
data leakage attacks depends on the attacker’s attitudes to what they are stealing (e.g.
secret keys). The aforementioned showed the importance of cryptographic algorithms
in real systems to protect data in various application domains by encrypting data with
secret keys. This has motivated attackers to deploy sophisticated attack techniques
to gain the secret keys. The scope of this attack model will be targeting secret keys.
A data leakage attack will be achieved in a two-step placement and running the
attack.
After identifying the data type by an attacker, the attacker needs to place its
malicious processes on the same physical machine as the victim is co-allocated, due
to the nature of the attack, which is co-resident. Placing a new instance of VM in a
lab is cheaper compared to real systems such as EC2 [36,55]. This is because cloud
providers, in real systems, attempt to hide the complexity of cloud infrastructure and
data storage to prevent cloud cartography. Thus, the attacker needs further action to
take place to find its victim. To overcome this problem, Ristenpart et al. [36] suc-
cessfully established a covert channel attack in a real cloud system, Amazon EC2, by
discovered EC2 mapping (internal and external network address spaces correspond-
ing to an entity creation) by utilising network probing technique. This was useful for
the early stage for the attacker to find the internal map of EC2 to place the attack
process with the victim so as to be in the same zone in EC2. This affords a chance of
being co-allocated on the same physical server in the same zone.
The next step is observation. In this stage, the attacker utilises the attack tech-
niques, such as prime+prob and flush+reload, as mentioned previously in Section
9.4.5. The attacker starts monitoring victim’s activities against shared hardware.
In recent years, these attacks have been studied very well across various on-board
resources such as CPU caches (L1 [60], L2 [48] and L3 or LLC [56]) and memory
pages [59]. Table 9.1 depicts relevant attacks against physical resources.
Stealing secret keys from cryptographic algorithms depends on the nature of
the algorithms. For instance, AES algorithm [6,8] encrypts plain text using lookup
table. This array holds a list of values that will be used during the encryption rounds.
This table is the most critical component in the algorithm and has been targeted by
attackers. AES attackers are interested in cache line accesses and cache contentions
to find out recent use of cache lines, which hold the candidate elements in the lookup
table by the victim.
However, the RSA algorithm [56], instead of having S-Box, depends on the
mathematical operations square and multiply. Thus, the attackers are interested in
tracing the execution of the victim’s program rather than memory accesses.
In attacks against L1 cache. Zhang et al. [60] constructed a side channel attack
utilising L1 instruction cache to extract AES secret keys from a co-resident victim VM
with attacker VM; both were running libgcrypt shared library. The authors addressed
source of noise (hardware and software) against the attack VM and were able to reduce
 Review of data leakage attack techniques in cloud systems 209

Table 9.1 Side and covert channel attack classifications

Data leakage attack techniques in cloud systems

Data Type Technique Application Resource Data type System Pubs

stat

DAR CC PP – L1 File IaaS 2009 [36]

CC PP – L1 File IaaS 2011 [55]
DIP SC – DES L1 Key Native 2003 [44]
CC PP RSA L1, L2 key native 2005 [35]
SC PP AES L1 Key native 2005 [6]
CC SMT/FU program L2 file native 2006 [49]
SC SMT/cache AES L2 key native 2006 [49]
SC – RSA I-cache Key native 2007 [1]
SC ET, PP AES Page – native 2008 [31],
2010 [43]
SC PP – I-cache – native 2010 [2]
CC PP browser Pages file PaaS 2010 [9]
SC ET, PP AES L3 key native 2011 [17]
CC PP – L2 file cloud 2011 [55]
CC PP browsers pages file IaaS 2011 [42]
CC PP browsers pages file IaaS 2011 [42]
SC PP AES L2 key native 2011 [17]
SC FR AES L3 key native 2014 [23]
CC PP browsers pages file PaaS 2014 [61]
CC FF RSA L3 Key IaaS 2014 [56]
SC FR AES L3 Key IaaS 2015 [22]
CC FF browser L3 file IaaS 2015 [13,14]
SC FR AES L3 key native 2015 [19]
SC PP AES L2 key IaaS 2015 [57]
SC FR AES LL3 key native 2015 [15]
SC PP, FR AES LL3 key native 2016 [24]
SC PP, FR AES LL3 key native, IaaS 2016 [18]
DIT CC Timing database – Dataset IaaS 2012 [41]
CC – database – Dataset IaaS 2012 [41]

the noise during the observation stage by using a combination of SVM and HMM to
deduce key-bits with low false negative.
In attacks against L2 cache, Ristenpart et al. [36] introduced a cross-VM covert
channel attack against CPU L2 cache. The authors targeted large-sized files to con-
vey messages between two VMs. The aim was to identify VMs’ co-residency on the
shared storage devices. The authors were interested in hard disk contention patterns
by recording access time variations to certain portions of the files between the VMs.
Subsequently, Xu et al. [55] carried out the previous attack and improved the res-
olution of the previous covert channel model with a higher bandwidth and lower
error rate.
Following this, attackers improved leakage attack by utilising different resources,
such as L3, with less time to recover entire keys. In previous studies, sharing cores
210 Data security in cloud computing

between attack and victim VMs was one of the requirement settings of the attacks.
Before 2014, the most targeted cache levels were L1 and L2 and the attack and the
victim process needed to be paired on the same core with the attacker process. Zhang
et al.’s [60] attack model utilised IPI interrupt to force the victim process to migrate
from a different core and allocate it with the attacker process. However, Yarom and
Falkner [56] introduced a new direction of side channel attacks by utilising L3 cache
and taking advantage of the inclusiveness feature. They proposed a flush + reload
technique to extract the components of the private key, approximately 97.7% bits of the
key, from the GnuPG implementation of RSA. Here, the attacker and victim process
resided on different cores, in shared page settings. They successfully constructed an
LLC-based channel between two unrelated processes in a virtualised environment.
As mentioned earlier, the deduplication feature is a key function in virtualisation,
so that the host is able to reclaim a large amount of memory against identical contents.
The results of the previous studies showed that this feature has been exploited in
cloud systems. Suzaki et al. [42] proposed a matching technique to identify running
applications (sshd and apache2 on linux OS and Firefox and IE6 on Windows XP)
and discover that a targeted file is downloaded in a browser on the victim’s VM.
Bosman et al. [7] proposed a side channel JavaScript-based attack against Windows
Edge Browser to retrieve HTTP hashed password. This weakness encouraged CPU
industries to disable this feature. However, this has not stopped attackers from leaking
information against hardware resources. Irazoqui et al. [22] took up the challenge that,
even with the disabling deduplication feature, leaking information is still feasible. The
authors utilised huge sized pages, in which the attacker can gain full physical addresses
from virtual addresses. When in cache addressing, the same physical addresses are
utilised for cache addressing.
In shared page settings, [56] successfully constructed LLC-based channel
between two unrelated processes in virtualised environment. As mentioned earlier,
deduplication feature is a key function in virtualisation so that the host OS is able to
reclaim a large amount of memory against identical contents. This feature is exploited
by [42,53,55]. This weakness encouraged CPU industries to disable this feature.
However, this does not stop attackers from leaking information from hardware level.
Irazoqui et al. [22] took the challenge that even with disabling deduplication feature,
leaking information is still feasible.

9.5 Mitigation countermeasures

In the past decade, variety of side and covert channel attack techniques and their
analysis on hardware usage at granularity level have been studied to gain unauthorised
information. It is crucial for cloud users and cloud providers to understand the aspects
involved in performing such attacks to address them.
Past studies showed that side and covert channel attacks in computer and cloud
systems can be successfully achieved through running programs on top of the
operating system using shared hardware resources. Reflecting on that, protection
and countermeasures of such attacks have mainly been addressed from previous
 Review of data leakage attack techniques in cloud systems 211

studies into four protection aspects, OS-based, application-based, hardware-based

and analysis- or profile-based detection. We will expand the discussion by exploring
existing protection techniques and mechanisms against such attacks. They can be
categorised as follows.

9.5.1 OS level
Previous studies proved that the OS failed to hide the granularity of underlying hard-
ware activities in multitasking systems. Moreover, it failed in maintaining the shared
libraries used by higher-level applications on top of it. Thus, researchers have offered
various solutions to customise existing OSs to mitigate such attacks.
Recent intensive studies have shown various exploitations to achieve such attacks.
This has led to drastic changes by CPU designers and software industries to mit-
igate and put barriers in front of attackers to prevent such malicious intentions. In
previous works, attacks against memory deduplication in virtualised systems led soft-
ware industries to make changes in the system settings by disabling such features by
default in their systems, such as Amazon EC2 [22,28]. Zhou et al. [62] proposed
CACHEBAR, which is a kernel space solution, to provide a concrete protection of
shared pages between cross-VMs in PaaS.
Irazoqui et al. [22] proposed S$A against LLC cache in large page settings to
retrieve AES secret keys. Because an attacker, in large size page addressing, can
reveal enough physical addresses to produce cache addresses, the authors, based on
the attack limitation, showed solutions to their attack by disabling large size pages
and supporting private cache slices per each VMs, which prevents cache interferences
between VMs. As such, an attacker will not be successful in deducing which cache
slices have been used by the victim.

9.5.2 Application level

The weaknesses in implementation of cryptographic algorithms might lead to side
channel attacks [6]. Cryptographic software, like OpenSSL, provides shared libraries
to several multiple programs concurrently to save memory and updating issues. How-
ever, this leads to potential threats to the software, as we showed massive attacks
on the cryptographic software. In Section 9.4.2.5, the mechanism of shared libraries
is shown, and this has a negative impact on using lookup table from being leaked
by attackers. Solutions have been proposed, but failed in practice. [6] showed a
constant-time solution against side channel attack, but it is impractical to implement
a constant-time high-speed AES algorithm.

9.5.3 Hardware level

Extensive studies in the past decade have addressed many of the hardware vulnera-
bilities that give rise to the attacks. The most targeted hardware resources are CPU
caches. This has led CPU industries to make physical changes in microprocessors to
mitigate the attacks. Based on the investigation studies has done by Percival [35] in
212 Data security in cloud computing

information leakage attacks against L1 cache, he recommended CPU industries to

disable sharing caches between core and threads to avoid cache line evictions.
Modern CPUs support hardware configurations to enable/disable hardware
settings, such as multi-threading. Multi-threading supports cache synchronisation
between threads of the same core, which has the basic characteristic of some previous
side channel attacks, in which case, disabling multi-threading stops the attack [25].
The authors proposed SEALTHMEM as an alternative technique to mitigate such
attacks.
As the Orange Book selected the AES algorithm as a proper solution to protect
data, AES has been paid attention by researcher and CPU designers. In 2008, Intel
[16] announced a new set of instructions, AES-NI. The CPU executes them on a
dedicated hardware for AES operations to speed up performance and security issues
[54]. However, this solution has not been adopted by some of the platforms and
software libraries, such as OpenSSL. Thus, the gap is still available for such side
channel attackers.
Cloud providers intend to change the infrastructure of cloud systems. After pre-
senting a series of channel-based attacks, [36,51,55] revealed the viability of building
a communication channel between them to separate VMs in Amazon EC2, by reveal-
ing mapping of internal hardware resources. Amazon enhanced service delivery to
cloud consumers by providing dedicated instances. The service emphasises on con-
crete isolation between tenants’ VMs. The physical resources assigned to the VMs of
one tenant are not shared with the VMs of other tenants.
Since 2014, [22,28,56] targeted inclusive feature on Intel microprocessors to
bridge between unrelated processes to exchange data. On the other hand, [21]
failed to set up the attack on AMD processors due to the difference in inclusive
behaviour between the processes. Sometimes it is hard to make physical change in
microprocessors, because it influences CPU performance.
Most of the recent attacks targeted hardware vulnerabilities, such as L1, L2
and LLC caches, while they achieve their attacks. However, there are hardware-
and software-proposed solutions to detect and prevent such attacks. Liu et al. [27]
proposed hardware and OS level protection models on LLC. They utilised perfor-
mance optimisation characteristics to protect LLC, which is shared for all cores of a
CPU. Then, they used the recent Intel cache technology, Cache Allocation Technology
(CAT), to protect LLC against side channel attack at OS level. Finally, they introduced
a combination of hardware and software support, CATalyst, which isolates LLC slices
and bounds each slice to one core. Thus, cross-cores cannot interfere with each other.

9.5.4 Analysis or profile-based detection

Detecting side/cover channel attacks against microprocessor components is unde-
tected and due to the attacks activities are hidden to access control mechanisms
of the system. This is because the attackers do not use legitimated accesses or
modification on the targeted resources, instead they exploit vulnerabilities prone to
hardware design and software implementation. Consequently, recent studies showed
that the best practice to countermeasure side/covert channel attacks is to use computer
 Review of data leakage attack techniques in cloud systems 213

performance analysis, because the nurture of this attack degrades performance of the
system.
Zhang et al. [58] designed a protection model (CloudRadar) to detect cross-VMs
side channel attacks in public cloud services PaaS against LLC without any hardware
and software configuration settings. Their model is based on the combination of
signature-based and anomaly-based detection techniques that relay on the use of
hardware performance counters.

9.6 Conclusion

This chapter has reviewed previous studies on data leakage attack techniques (side and
covert channels) and highlighted the essential resources and their characteristics that
have been used in such attacks. Furthermore, it introduced the technical requirements
to achieve such an attack. This chapter has demonstrated the importance of data and
its usage by different technologies in cloud environment while it is moved through
insecure communication channels and manipulated in untrusted computational envi-
ronments. It has also categorised data leakage attack techniques according to the
architectural layers in which the attack can be achieved and the resources have been
used to perform such attacks, highlighting what type of data is targeted by this attack.

References
[1] Onur Aciiçmez. Yet another microarchitectural attack: Exploiting i-cache. In
Proceedings of the 2007 ACM Workshop on Computer Security Architecture,
CSAW ’07, pages 11–18. New York, NY, USA: ACM, 2007.
[2] Onur Acıiçmez, Billy Bob Brumley, and Philipp Grabher. New results
on instruction cache attacks. In International Workshop on Cryptographic
Hardware and Embedded Systems, pages 110–124. Springer, 2010.
[3] Hassan Aly and Mohammed ElGayyar. Attacking AES using Bernstein’s attack
on modern processors. In Progress in Cryptology – AFRICACRYPT 2013,
pages 127–139. Springer, 2013.
[4] Andrea Arcangeli, Izik Eidus, and Chris Wright. Increasing memory density
by using ksm. In Proceedings of the Linux Symposium, pages 19–28. Citeseer,
2009.
[5] Utsav Banerjee, Lisa Ho, and Skanda Koppula. Power-based side-channel
attack for AES key extraction on the atmega328 microcontroller, 2015.
[6] Daniel J Bernstein. Cache-timing attacks on AES, 2005.
[7] Erik Bosman, Kaveh Razavi, Herbert Bos, and Cristiano Giuffrida. Dedup est
machina: Memory deduplication as an advanced exploitation vector, 2016.
[8] Samira Briongos, Pedro Malagón, José L Risco-Martín, and José M Moya.
Modeling side-channel cache attacks on AES. In Proceedings of the Summer
Computer Simulation Conference, page 37. Society for Computer Simulation
International, 2016.
214 Data security in cloud computing

[9] Shuo Chen, Rui Wang, XiaoFeng Wang, and Kehuan Zhang. Side-channel
leaks in web applications: A reality today, a challenge tomorrow. In 2010
IEEE Symposium on Security and Privacy, pages 191–206. IEEE, 2010.
[10] Cheng-Kang Chu, Wen-Tao Zhu, Jin Han, Joseph K Liu, Xu Jia, and Zhou
Jianying. Security concerns in popular cloud storage services. IEEE Pervasive
Computing, 12(4):50–57, 2013.
[11] Qian Ge, Yuval Yarom, David Cock, and Gernot Heiser. A survey of microar-
chitectural timing attacks and countermeasures on contemporary hardware.
Journal of Cryptographic Engineering, pages 1–27, 2016.
[12] Daniel Gruss, David Bidner, and Stefan Mangard. Practical memory dedupli-
cation attacks in sandboxed javascript. In European Symposium on Research
in Computer Security, pages 108–122. Springer, 2015.
[13] Daniel Gruss, Clémentine Maurice, and Klaus Wagner. Flush+ flush: A
stealthier last-level cache attack. arXiv preprint arXiv:1511.04594, 2015.
[14] Daniel Gruss, Clémentine Maurice, Klaus Wagner, and Stefan Man-
gard. Flush+ flush: A fast and stealthy cache attack. arXiv preprint
arXiv:1511.04594, 2015.
[15] Daniel Gruss, Raphael Spreitzer, and Stefan Mangard. Cache template attacks:
Automating attacks on inclusive last-level caches. In 24th USENIX Security
Symposium (USENIX Security 15), pages 897–912, 2015.
[16] Shay Gueron. Advanced encryption standard (AES) instructions set. Intel,
http://softwarecommunity. intel. com/articles/eng/3788.htm, accessed 25, Aug
2008.
[17] David Gullasch, Endre Bangerter, and Stephan Krenn. Cache games-bringing
access-based cache attacks on AES to practice. In 2011 IEEE Symposium on
Security and Privacy, pages 490–505. IEEE, 2011.
[18] Berk Gulmezoglu, Mehmet Inci, Gorka Irazoki, Thomas Eisenbarth, and Berk
Sunar. Cross-vm cache attacks on AES, 2016.
[19] Berk Gülmezoğlu, Mehmet Sinan Inci, Gorka Irazoqui, Thomas Eisenbarth,
and Berk Sunar. A faster and more realistic flush+ reload attack on AES. In
International Workshop on Constructive Side-Channel Analysis and Secure
Design, pages 111–126. Springer, 2015.
[20] Hermine Hovhannisyan, Kejie Lu, and Jianping Wang. A novel high-speed
ip-timing covert channel: Design and evaluation. In 2015 IEEE International
Conference on Communications (ICC), pages 7198–7203. IEEE, 2015.
[21] Ralf Hund, Carsten Willems, and Thorsten Holz. Practical timing side channel
attacks against kernel space aslr. In Security and Privacy (SP), 2013 IEEE
Symposium on, pages 191–205. IEEE, 2013.
[22] Gorka Irazoqui, Thomas Eisenbarth, and Berk Sunar. S$a: A shared cache
attack that works across cores and defies vm sandboxing and its application
to AES. In 2015 IEEE Symposium on Security and Privacy, pages 591–604.
IEEE, 2015.
[23] Gorka Irazoqui, Mehmet Sinan Inci, Thomas Eisenbarth, and Berk Sunar. Wait
a minute! A fast, cross-vm attack on AES. In International Workshop on Recent
Advances in Intrusion Detection, pages 299–319. Springer, 2014.
 Review of data leakage attack techniques in cloud systems 215

[24] Mehmet Kayaalp, Nael Abu-Ghazaleh, Dmitry Ponomarev, and Aamer Jaleel.
A high-resolution side-channel attack on last-level cache. In Proceedings of
the 53rd Annual Design Automation Conference, page 72. ACM, 2016.
[25] Taesoo Kim, Marcus Peinado, and Gloria Mainar-Ruiz. Stealthmem: System-
level protection against cache-based side channel attacks in the cloud. In
Presented as Part of the 21st USENIX Security Symposium (USENIX Security
12), pages 189–204, 2012.
[26] Butler W Lampson. Dynamic protection structures. In Proceedings of the
November 18–20, 1969, Fall Joint Computer Conference, pages 27–38. ACM,
1969.
[27] Fangfei Liu, Qian Ge, Yuval Yarom et al. Catalyst: Defeating last-level cache
side channel attacks in cloud computing. In 2016 IEEE International Sympo-
sium on High Performance Computer Architecture (HPCA), pages 406–418.
IEEE, 2016.
[28] Clémentine Maurice, Christoph Neumann, Olivier Heen, and Aurélien Fran-
cillon. C5: cross-cores cache covert channel. In International Conference on
Detection of Intrusions and Malware, and Vulnerability Assessment, pages
46–64. Springer, 2015.
[29] Peter Mell and Tim Grance. The nist definition of cloud computing,
2011.
[30] Michael Neve, Jean-Pierre Seifert, and Zhenghong Wang. A refined look
at Bernstein’s AES side-channel analysis. In Proceedings of the 2006 ACM
Symposium on Information, Computer and Communications Security, pages
369–369. ACM, 2006.
[31] Dag Arne Osvik, Adi Shamir, and Eran Tromer. Cache attacks and counter-
measures: The case of AES. In Topics in Cryptology – CT-RSA 2006, pages
1–20. Springer, 2006.
[32] Ying-Shiuan Pan, Jui-Hao Chiang, Han-Lin Li, Po-Jui Tsao, Ming-Fen Lin,
and Tzi-cker Chiueh. Hypervisor support for efficient memory de-duplication.
In Parallel and Distributed Systems (ICPADS), 2011 IEEE 17th International
Conference on, pages 33–39. IEEE, 2011.
[33] Gabriele Paoloni. How to benchmark code execution times on intel ia-32
and ia-64 instruction set architectures. Intel Corporation, September, 123,
2010.
[34] N Penchalaiah and Ravala Seshadri. Effective comparison and evaluation of
des and rijndael algorithm (AES). International Journal of Computer Science
and Engineering, 2(05):1641–1645, 2010.
[35] Colin Percival. Cache missing for fun and profit, 2005.
[36] Thomas Ristenpart, Eran Tromer, Hovav Shacham, and Stefan Savage. Hey,
you, get off of my cloud: Exploring information leakage in third-party com-
pute clouds. In Proceedings of the 16th ACM conference on Computer and
communications security, pages 199–212. ACM, 2009.
[37] Asaf Shabtai, Yuval Elovici, and Lior Rokach. A Survey of Data Leakage
Detection and Prevention Solutions. Springer Science & Business Media,
2012.
216 Data security in cloud computing

[38] Gaurav Shah and Matt Blaze. Covert channels through external interference.
In Proceedings of the 3rd USENIX Conference on Offensive Technologies
(WOOT’09), pages 1–7, 2009.
[39] Gaurav Shah, Andres Molina, Matt Blaze et al. Keyboards and covert channels.
In Usenix security, volume 6, pages 59–75, 2006.
[40] Dawn Xiaodong Song, David Wagner, and Xuqing Tian. Timing analysis of
keystrokes and timing attacks on ssh. In Proceedings of the 10th Confer-
ence on USENIX Security Symposium, volume 10, SSYM’01, Berkeley, CA,
USA:USENIX Association, 2001.
[41] Salvatore J Stolfo, Malek Ben Salem, and Angelos D Keromytis. Fog
computing: Mitigating insider data theft attacks in the cloud. In Security
and Privacy Workshops (SPW), 2012 IEEE Symposium on, pages 125–128.
IEEE, 2012.
[42] Kuniyasu Suzaki, Kengo Iijima, Toshiki Yagi, and Cyrille Artho. Memory
deduplication as a threat to the guest os. In Proceedings of the Fourth European
Workshop on System Security, page 1. ACM, 2011.
[43] Eran Tromer, Dag Arne Osvik, and Adi Shamir. Efficient cache attacks on
AES, and countermeasures. Journal of Cryptology, 23(1):37–71, 2010.
[44] Yukiyasu Tsunoo, Teruo Saito, Tomoyasu Suzaki, Maki Shigeri, and Hiroshi
Miyauchi. Cryptanalysis of des implemented on computers with cache. In
International Workshop on Cryptographic Hardware and Embedded Systems,
pages 62–76. Springer, 2003.
[45] Marcel van den Berg. Paper: Vmware esx memory resource management:
Transparent page sharing, 2013.
[46] INC VMWARE. Understanding memory resource management in vmware esx
server. Palo Alto, California, USA, 2009.
[47] Carl A Waldspurger. Memory resource management in vmware esx server.
ACM SIGOPS Operating Systems Review, 36(SI):181–194, 2002.
[48] Cong Wang, Qian Wang, Kui Ren, Ning Cao, and Wenjing Lou. Toward secure
and dependable storage services in cloud computing. Services Computing,
IEEE Transactions on, 5(2):220–232, 2012.
[49] Zhenghong Wang and Ruby B Lee. Covert and side channels due to processor
architecture. In ACSAC, volume 6, pages 473–482, 2006.
[50] Jun Wu, Yong-Bin Kim, and Minsu Choi. Low-power side-channel attack-
resistant asynchronous s-box design for AES cryptosystems. In Proceedings
of the 20th Symposium on Great Lakes Symposium on VLSI, pages 459–464.
ACM, 2010.
[51] Zhenyu Wu, Zhang Xu, and Haining Wang. Whispers in the hyper-space:
High-speed covert channel attacks in the cloud. In Presented as Part of the
21st USENIX Security Symposium (USENIX Security 12), pages 159–173,
2012.
[52] Zhenyu Wu, Zhang Xu, and Haining Wang. Whispers in the hyper-space: high-
bandwidth and reliable covert channel attacks inside the cloud. IEEE/ACM
Transactions on Networking (TON), 23(2):603–614, 2015.
 Review of data leakage attack techniques in cloud systems 217

[53] Jidong Xiao, Zhang Xu, Hai Huang, and Haining Wang. A covert channel
construction in a virtualized environment. In Proceedings of the 2012 ACM
Conference on Computer and Communications Security, pages 1040–1042.
ACM, 2012.
[54] Leslie Xu. Securing the enterprise with intel AES-NI. Intel Corporation, 2010.
[55] Yunjing Xu, Michael Bailey, Farnam Jahanian, Kaustubh Joshi, Matti Hiltunen,
and Richard Schlichting. An exploration of l2 cache covert channels in virtu-
alized environments. In Proceedings of the Third ACM Workshop on Cloud
Computing Security Workshop, pages 29–40. ACM, 2011.
[56] Yuval Yarom and Katrina Falkner. Flush+ reload: A high resolution, low noise,
l3 cache side-channel attack. In 23rd USENIX Security Symposium (USENIX
Security 14), pages 719–732, 2014.
[57] Younis A Younis, Kashif Kifayat, Qi Shi, and Bob Askwith. A new prime
and probe cache side-channel attack for cloud computing. In Computer
and Information Technology; Ubiquitous Computing and Communications;
Dependable, Autonomic and Secure Computing; Pervasive Intelligence and
Computing (CIT/IUCC/DASC/PICOM), 2015 IEEE International Conference
on, pages 1718–1724. IEEE, 2015.
[58] Tianwei Zhang, Yinqian Zhang, and Ruby B Lee. Cloudradar: A real-time
side-channel attack detection system in clouds. In International Symposium
on Research in Attacks, Intrusions, and Defenses, pages 118–140. Springer,
2016.
[59] Yinqian Zhang, Ari Juels, Alina Oprea, and Michael K Reiter. Homealone:
Co-residency detection in the cloud via side-channel analysis. In 2011 IEEE
Symposium on Security and Privacy, pages 313–328. IEEE, 2011.
[60] Yinqian Zhang, Ari Juels, Michael K Reiter, and Thomas Ristenpart. Cross-vm
side channels and their use to extract private keys. In Proceedings of the 2012
ACM Conference on Computer and Communications Security, pages 305–316.
ACM, 2012.
[61] Yinqian Zhang, Ari Juels, Michael K Reiter, and Thomas Ristenpart. Cross-
tenant side-channel attacks in paas clouds. In Proceedings of the 2014 ACM
SIGSAC Conference on Computer and Communications Security, pages 990–
1003. ACM, 2014.
[62] Ziqiao Zhou, Michael K Reiter, and Yinqian Zhang. A software approach to
defeating side channels in last-level caches. arXiv preprint arXiv:1603.05615,
2016.
This page intentionally left blank
 Chapter 10
Cloud computing and personal data processing:
sorting-out legal requirements
Ioulia Konstantinou1 and Irene Kamara1

Abstract

Cloud computing facilitates and accelerates the collection and processing of

( personal) data and the development of new services and applications. When data
collection involves personal data, specific risks and challenges for privacy and data
protection of the individuals arise. The interference with privacy and data protection
necessitates the implementation of appropriate safeguards. Therefore, new impacts
and risks need to be analysed and assessed. In the cloud computing context, privacy
and data protection should not be inferior to the level of protection required in any
other data processing context. Looking at the European legal framework, the EU has
thorough legislation for the protection of personal data. The new General Data Pro-
tection Regulation introduces detailed provisions establishing obligations and new
instruments, such as certification. In addition, the EU data protection legislation has
what is often called an extra-territorial effect, which entails that under conditions
is applicable to natural or legal persons not established in the EU jurisdiction. The
extra-territorial effect of the EU data protection legislation makes the EU legislation
relevant for service providers who are not established in the EU but are processing
personal data of EU citizens. This chapter aims to provide an overview of the legal
requirements applicable to cloud-based applications and data processing, drawing
examples primarily from the EU legal framework. This overview can serve as an

1
Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Research Group on Law, Science, Technology and Society (LSTS), Belgium.
This research is partially based on research conducted for the Research Project SeCloud and the report
Konstantinou I., et al. ‘Overview of applicable legal framework and general legal requirements: Deliverable
3.1 for the SeCloud project’ SeCloud project, 2016.
‘Security-driven engineering of Cloud-based Applications’ (‘SeCloud’) project is a 3-year project run-
ning from 2015 to 2018, funded by Innoviris, the Brussels Institute for Research and Innovation. It aims
at addressing security risks of cloud-based applications in a holistic and proactive approach, built upon
different aspects of the security problems: not only technical, but also organisational and societal ones.
See more information on http://www.securit-brussels.be/project/secloud/
The project is comprised of four perspectives: architecture, infrastructure, programming and process.
The ‘process’ perspective of SeCloud aims at assisting overcoming legal barriers when developing cloud-
based applications.
220 Data security in cloud computing

index of key obligations and responsibilities for cloud service providers and cloud
clients, but also for further research purposes (i.e. comparative analysis with other
legal frameworks).

Keywords
cloud computing, personal data, General Data Protection Regulation, responsibilities,
legal requirements, data transfers

10.1 Introduction: the emergence of cloud and the

significance of a secure cloud

Cloud computing enables ubiquitous, convenient, on-demand network access to

a shared pool of configurable computing resources [1]. In 2016, the European
Commission stated that:

The Cloud makes it possible to move, share and re-use data seamlessly
across global markets and borders, and among institutions and research
disciplines [2].

ENISA, the European Union Agency for Network and Information Security,
highlighted scalability, elasticity, high performance, resilience and security together
with cost-efficiency as benefits of cloud computing for public authorities [3]. The
possibilities of opening-up with cloud computing enable numerous applications such
as in mobile health, Internet of Things and online commerce, but at the same time
pose significant risks to the protection of personal data of the individuals, the data
of which are stored in the cloud. Data security risks include loss of governance,
isolation failure, insecure or incomplete data deletion [4]. In addition, the exercise
of the individuals’ rights to access, modify or erase personal data concerning them
is more challenging to be exercised in the cloud context. In the cloud model [1],
users’ data are transferred to cloud-based applications and are stored either by these
applications or by third parties (cloud services), along with data of other users. Cloud
applications and the entities related to the applications, often collecting and processing
personal data, have responsibilities and legal obligations to protect and process such
data in compliance with the law.
The EU has thorough legislation for the protection of personal data. The new Gen-
eral Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) [5], which was recently finalised, introduces
detailed provisions for the protection of personal data. In addition, EU data protec-
tion legislation has what is often called an extra-territorial effect: under conditions,
which are explained in the next section; it is also applicable outside of the EU ‘terri-
tory’ (jurisdiction). Therefore, the EU legislation is relevant not only to organisations
established in the EU, but also to organisations established outside the EU.
 Cloud computing and personal data processing 221

The chapter is structured as follows: first, there is a discussion on the ‘extra-

territorial effect’ of the EU data protection law. This section intends to demonstrate
the relevance of the EU data protection law to non-EU cloud actors.2 In addition, the
EU data protection law, being stringent and detailed, serves as a good example for
analysing the legal obligations of ‘cloud players’. Next, the EU data protection legal
framework is briefly presented. The fourth section introduces the legal concepts of
data controller and data processor. As the legislation uses different terms than cloud
provider, cloud client, etc., this section is significant because it helps identify which
cloud actor has which legal obligations. The obligations and roles of controller and
processor might vary in different contexts, when for instance a cloud service provider
(CSP) has access to the data stored in the cloud, whereas in other cases, the CSP does
not have access rights to the data. The fifth section is divided into two parts: the first
part focuses on the compliance of cloud players with general personal data principles.
The second part delves into the specific technical and organisational measures. The
sixth section of the chapter analyses the regulation of data flows. It provides a detailed
overview of the international data transfers issue: when the EU data protection law
allows data transfers outside of its jurisdiction and under which conditions. Finally,
Section 10.7 summarises and concludes the chapter.

10.2 Cloud computing and the extra-territorial effect

of EU data protection law

Cloud computing entails data transfers from one data centre to another. From a legal
point of view, the location of the data centre, but also the cloud client and the CSP,
are in principle crucial to determine the applicable law. In general, data flows raise
several questions as to the governing law, applicable to the data processing operations.
Within the EU, there is a new personal data protection legal framework, the GDPR,
which will be directly3 applicable to all EU Member States from 2018 onwards.
Even beyond the CSPs established in the EU Member States, the GDPR is relevant
to cloud clients and CSP that might not be established in the EU. As De Hert and
Czerniawski explain, the GDPR introduces new factors, beyond ‘territory’, to assess
whether an EU Member State has jurisdiction over a data protection case [6]. Article
3 of the GDPR introduces new criteria for deciding GDPR applicability: ‘offering
goods or services to’ or ‘monitoring the behaviour of ’ data subjects in the EU by
a controller or processor not established in the EU [7]. The wording in the Union

2
Cloud actors in the context of this article are the cloud service provider and the cloud client.
3
It is important to explain the difference between an EU Directive and an EU Regulation. An EU Directive
is a legislative act that sets out a goal that all EU Member States must achieve. However, it is up to the
individual Member State to devise their own laws on how to reach these goals. Therefore, it requires
implementation by the Member States, as it is only a framework law. An EU Regulation, on the other hand,
is a binding legislative act, directly applicable in its entirety across the EU. No national implementation is
required. As it is immediately applicable and enforceable by law in all Member States, it offers higher levels
of law harmonisation across the EU. http://europa.eu/eu-law/decision-making/legal-acts/index_en.htm and
http://ec.europa.eu/legislation/index_en.htm.
222 Data security in cloud computing

implies physical presence of the individual whose personal data are processed (data
subject) in the EU, but not necessarily residence.
Article 3 GDPR provides:

1. This Regulation applies to the processing of personal data in the context of

the activities of an establishment of a controller or a processor in the Union,
regardless of whether the processing takes place in the Union or not.
2. This Regulation applies to the processing of personal data of data subjects who
are in the Union by a controller or processor not established in the Union, where
the processing activities are related to:
(a) the offering of goods or services, irrespective of whether a payment of the
data subject is required, to such data subjects in the Union; or (b) the monitoring
of their behaviour as far as their behaviour takes place within the Union.
3. This Regulation applies to the processing of personal data by a controller not
established in the Union, but in a place where Member State law applies by virtue
of public international law.

Basically, the GDPR applies to (1) EU companies that process personal data,
regardless of whether the processing takes place in the EU or not and (2) non-EU
companies which process personal data of data subjects who are in the EU, and these
processing activities are related to (i) the offering of goods or services to EU data
subjects or (ii) monitoring individuals’ behaviours that occur within the EU.
To provide an example: when a US-established cloud provider offers targeted
services to individuals in the EU, irrespectively of whether the individuals’are citizens
of an EU Member State or US citizens residing in France, the legal relationship of the
US cloud provider with the US citizen is governed by the EU GDPR regarding the data
processing activities concerning those individuals’. This is because the EU legislation
does not depend on its protection on whether the individual is an EU citizen, but the
protection is offered to any individual, given that the other conditions of Article 3
GDPR are met.
This extra-territorial effect of the EU data protection legislation (GDPR) has been
discussed and criticised [8], among others as facilitating legal uncertainty for a CSP.
A CSP might be subject to different legislations and thus be caught in a network of
different and sometimes conflicting legal rules [6]. Despite the discussion revolving
around the effect and the criticism, cloud computing actors as analysed below need to
be aware of the broadened applicability of the EU data protection framework. If their
processing activities fall in the scope of the GDPR, they shall comply with their legal
obligations.

10.3 The EU legal framework on data protection

In this section, we provide a brief overview of the EU data protection legal framework,
with some comments on the applicability of the Directive 95/46/EC and the new
GDPR.
 Cloud computing and personal data processing 223

10.3.1 The Data Protection Directive 95/46/EC

From 1995 until 2018, the protection of personal data in the EU is regulated with the
Data Protection Directive 95/46/EC. Personal data processing operations resulting
from the use of cloud computing services and falling within the territorial scope
criteria of EU data protection law need to respect the EU data protection provisions
of Directive 95/46/EC as transposed in the national law of the EU Member States [9].
Processing operations fall within the scope of EU Data Protection Directive when
personal data is processed in an automated way, and the data processing takes place
in the context of the activities of an establishment of a controller located in the EU
or by a controller located outside the EU that makes use of equipment located in the
EU [10]. When processing in a cloud computing environment involves the processing
of personal data about the provision of publicly available electronic communications
services in public communications networks (telecom operators), the processing also
needs to comply with the specific legal instrument of the EU data protection law,
the e-Privacy Directive 2002/58/EC [11].4

10.3.2 The new General Data Protection Regulation

Following the technological emergence and the proliferation of online services, the
EU regulator initiated in 2012 a reform process of the Data Protection Directive. The
first draft for a GDPR aimed at providing a single set of rules within the EU for the
processing of personal data by private companies and the public sector.5
After 3 years of negotiations, the European Parliament and the Council of the
European Union reached an informal agreement on the final draft of the EU GDPR in
2015. On 14 April 2016, the EU GDPR 679/2016 was adopted at EU level. The GDPR
is now officially EU law and will directly apply in all EU Member States, replacing EU
and national data protection legislation. Although the GDPR was adopted on 24 May
2016, it will enter into force from 25 May 2018, giving the organisations subject to its
scope a 2-year period to adapt their processing activities to the new legal framework.6
The new rules on the one hand build upon the general principles set forth in Directive
95/46/EC and on the other hand aim at updating them in accordance with the needs of
the digital environment, simplifying administrative burdens and reinforcing the rights
of individuals, the accountability of controllers and processors of personal data and
the powers of supervisory national authorities [10]. The GDPR introduces some new

4
Directive 2002/58/EC applies to providers of electronic communication services made available to the
public and requires them to ensure compliance with obligations relating to the secrecy of communica-
tions and personal data protection, as well as rights and obligations regarding electronic communications
networks and services. In cases where cloud computing providers act as providers of a publicly available
electronic communication service, they will be subject to this regulation. The Directive is currently under
legislative reform.
5
Directive 95/46/EC needed to be implemented at a national level, requiring transposition into national
law by the national legislature of each member state. The General Data Protection Regulation is directly
applicable in all Member States. It applies automatically in each Member State and does not require any
national implementation by the Member States.
6
Article 99 GDPR.
224 Data security in cloud computing

obligations for data controllers, such as ‘privacy by design’ and ‘privacy by default’,
accountability, data protection impact assessments (DPIAs), personal data breach
notifications, as well as the right to be forgotten and the right to data portability. The
technologically neutral approach of EU data protection rules in Directive 95/46/EC
is maintained. The GDPR embraces the technological developments but does not
focus on any specific technologies. Therefore, it also applies to cloud computing
services [12].

10.4 Data controller, data processor and cloud computing

actors: assigning roles and responsibilities

The EU data protection legislation uses two key terms to signify the persons respon-
sible to comply with the legal obligations: data controller and data processor. Article
4(7) GDPR defines a controller as ‘the natural or legal person, public authority,
agency or any other body that alone or jointly with others determines the purposes
and means of the processing of personal data’. Article 4(8) GDPR defines a data
processor as the ‘natural or legal person, public authority, agency or any other body
that alone or jointly with others, processes personal data on behalf of the controller’.
One of the most important and challenging aspects of the data protection legal
framework in the cloud computing context is the applicability of the notions of
‘controller’ and ‘processor’. The allocation of these roles is the crucial factor that
decides the responsibility for compliance with data protection rules. Cloud computing
involves a range of various and different actors. To establish the specific obligations,
duties and responsibilities of each actor according to the data protection legal frame-
work, it is, first, necessary to define, refine and assess the role of each of these
actors involved. Article 29 Working Party (WP29), an advisory body comprised of
EU national data Protection authorities,7 in its Opinion 1/2010 on the concepts of
‘controller’ and ‘processor’ has stressed out that:

the first and foremost role of the concept of controller is to determine who
shall be responsible for compliance with data protection rules, and how
data subjects8 can exercise the rights in practice. In other words: to allocate
responsibility [13].

Therefore, two general key criteria can be extracted from the WP29 opinion on
how to determine who the controller is and who the processor in each case: allocation
of responsibility and responsibility for compliance.

7
Under the GDPR, Article 29 Working Party will be replaced by the European Data Protection Board
(EDPB).
8
The data subject is the person whose personal data are collected, held or processed. (https://secure.edps.
europa.eu/EDPSWEB/edps/site/mySite/pid/74#data_subject.)
 Cloud computing and personal data processing 225

10.4.1 Cloud client and cloud service provider

Personal data processing is defined in Article 4(2) GDPR as ‘any operation or set of
operations which is performed on personal data or on sets of personal data, whether
or not by automated means’. Such operations include collection, recording, organ-
isation, structuring, storage, adaptation or alteration, retrieval, consultation, use,
disclosure by transmission, dissemination or otherwise making available, alignment
or combination, restriction, erasure or destruction of personal data.
The cloud client usually determines the ultimate purpose of the processing and
decides on the outsourcing of this processing and the delegation of all or part of the
processing activities to an external organisation. The cloud client therefore acts in
principle as a data controller [10,14,15]. The cloud client, acting as data controller, is
responsible for complying with data protection legislation. The cloud client may assign
the CSP the selection of the methods and the technical or organisational measures to be
used to achieve the purposes of the controller [16]. The CSP is the entity that provides
the various forms of cloud computing services. When the cloud provider supplies the
means and the platform, acting on behalf of the cloud client (data controller), the CSP
is usually considered a data processor. The suggested way to ensure compliance by the
data processor is to strictly apply the requirements of Article 32 GDPR on the security
of processing and Article 28 GDPR on the responsibilities of processors [10,13,16].
However, the precise role of the CSP should be examined on a case-by-case basis.
It may occur that in some cases, the CSP processes personal data, when for instance
the CSP has access to the stored data. In such cases, it is important to determine
whether the cloud provider is merely acting as a ‘data processor’ on behalf of the data
controller, whether it is a data controller (for instance, processes the data for its own
purposes) or a joint controller together with the cloud client [15].9
The European Data Protection Supervisor (EDPS) further adds that:

the cloud client/data controller may not be the only entity that can solely
determine the ‘purposes and means of the processing’. More and more often,
the determination of the essential elements of the means, which is a prerog-
ative of the data controller, is not in the hands of the cloud client. In this
respect, the cloud provider, who happens to have the technical background,
typically designs, operates and maintains the cloud computing IT infras-
tructure (be it simply the basic hardware and software services as in IaaS,

9
Per ICO (Information Commissioner’s Office, the UK Data Protection Authority) identifying the data
controller in a private cloud should be quite straightforward because the cloud customer will exercise
control over the purpose for which the personal data will be processed within the cloud service. If a
cloud provider simply maintains any underlying infrastructure, then it is likely to be a data processor. In
a community cloud, more than one data controller is likely to access the cloud service. They could act
independently of each other or could work together. If one of the data controllers also acts as a cloud
provider, it will also assume the role of a data processor in respect of the other data controllers that use
the infrastructure. When using a public cloud, a cloud client may find it difficult to exercise control over
the operation of a large cloud provider. However, when an organisation contracts for cloud computing
services based on the cloud provider’s standard terms and conditions, this organisation is still responsible
for determining the purposes and the means of the personal data processing. (pp. 7–9).
226 Data security in cloud computing

or the platform as in PaaS, or the overall service, including the application

software, as in SaaS) [10].

Furthermore, it is often the CSP the one who develops standard contracts or Ser-
vice Level Agreements (SLAs) to be offered to the cloud client based on its technical
infrastructure and business type. The cloud client has, therefore, no or very little
leeway to modify the technical or contractual means of the service [10].
Data processors need to consider the deployment model/service model of the
cloud in question (public, private, community or hybrid/IaaS, SaaS or PaaS) and
the type of service contracted by the client. Processors are responsible for adopting
security measures in line with those in EU legislation as applied in the controller’s and
the processor’s jurisdictions. Processors must also support and assist the controller
in complying with (exercised) data subjects’ rights [16]. The GDPR, in that respect,
introduces a broader perspective compared to the Directive 95/46/EC provisions with
regard to the role of the processors in personal data processing, who, under the
Directive 95/46/EC, are only indirectly liable. Under the new regime, certain EU data
protection law requirements, for instance on accountability, data security and data
breach notifications, will apply for the first time directly to data processors. Apart
from these requirements, Article 82 GDPR specifically holds processors directly liable
(par.1) and establishes the conditions under which individuals may claim damages
from them (par.2): in cases where a processor has not complied with GDPR obligations
addressed specifically to processors or in cases it has acted contrary to or outside of
the lawful instructions of the data controller [17]. Article 28(3) GDPR provides for
detailed rules on the terms of the contract which appoints processors.

10.4.2 Sub-contractors
Cloud computing services may involve many contracted parties who act as data pro-
cessors. Data processors may also sub-contract services to additional sub-processors.
In that case, the data processor has an obligation to provide the cloud client with any
relevant information regarding the service sub-contracted, e.g. its type, the character-
istics of current or potential sub-contractors and guarantees that these entities act/will
act in compliance with the GDPR. To ensure the allocation of clear responsibilities
for data processing activities, all the relevant obligations must also apply to the sub-
processors through contracts between the cloud provider and sub-contractor, describ-
ing the provisions, terms and requirements of the contract between the cloud client and
the cloud provider [14]. These conditions are also mentioned in Article 28(4) GDPR,
which stresses that in case of sub-contracting for specific processing activities, the
same data protection obligations as set out in the contract or another legal act between
the controller and the processor shall be imposed on the sub-processor. These obliga-
tions should provide sufficient guarantees, specifically around data security. In case
of sub-processor’s non-compliance with the imposed obligations, the initial processor
remains fully liable to the controller for the performance of these obligations.
The data processor may sub-contract its activities on the basis of the agreement
of the data controller (or else ‘consent’ if a natural person). This consent must be
given at the beginning of the service and must be accompanied with an obligation on
 Cloud computing and personal data processing 227

behalf of the data processor to inform the data controller on any intended changes
concerning the addition or replacement of sub-contractors. The controller reserves the
right to object to such changes or terminate the contract at any time [14]. This opinion
is enshrined in Article 28(2) GDPR, which basically introduces sub-contracting only
upon controller’s consent [17].
Article 29 Working Party proposes that there should be guarantees for direct
liability of the processor towards the controller for any breaches caused by the sub-
processor(s). Another proposal is the creation of a third-party beneficiary right in
favour of the controller in the contracts signed between the processor and sub-
processor(s) or the signature of these contracts on behalf of the data controller,
rendering him a party to the contract [14]. Even though, the Article 29 Working Party
opinions are not mandatory, cloud actors should consider the ‘soft law’10 interpretation
of the legislation by the EU regulators, in this case the data protection authorities.
The following table summarises the terminology and basic roles described above:

Table 10.1 Basic roles of cloud actors from an EU data protection perspective

Cloud actor Activity Role from data protec- Definition

tion perspective

Cloud client Determines the purpose Data controller or joint A data controller,
of the processing and controller ‘alone or jointly with
decides on the others, determines the
delegation of all or purposes and means
part of the processing of the processing of
activities to an external personal data’.
organisation Art. 4(7) GDPR
Cloud service Provides the various When the cloud A data processor, AQ1
provider types of cloud provider supplies the ‘processes personal
computing services means and the data on behalf of the
platform, acting on controller’. Art. 4(8)
behalf of the cloud GDPR
client (data controller),
the cloud provider
is a data processor.
Also possible joint
controller
Sub- If the cloud client (data From a data protection –
contractors controller) consents, perspective, the
the cloud providers sub-contractors are
(data processors) data processors
may also sub-contract
services to additional
sub-processors
(sub-contractors)

10
‘Soft law’ could be defined as rules that are neither legally binding nor completely lacking legal signif-
icance. These rules, which are not directly enforceable, include guidelines, policy declarations, codes
of conduct, etc. ‘Soft law’ is often contrasted with ‘hard law’, which refers to traditional, directly
enforceable, law.
228 Data security in cloud computing

10.5 Duties and responsibilities of the cloud computing actors

This section discusses the key legal requirements for the cloud client and the CSP
that emanate from the GDPR. The requirements are divided into two categories: (1)
compliance with the general data processing principles and (2) implementation of
technical and organisational measures.

10.5.1 Compliance with the general personal data processing

principles
Personal data processing in the context of cloud computing is deemed lawful if it is
performed in compliance with the basic principles of EU data protection law along
with the other applicable obligations. These basic principles include: lawfulness,
transparency towards the data subject, purpose specification and limitation, accuracy,
storage limitation, integrity and confidentiality and accountability.

10.5.1.1 Transparency
The principle of transparency is crucial for fair and legitimate processing of personal
data in cloud computing. In accordance with Articles 5(1)(a) and 12 GDPR, the cloud
client, when acting as data controller, is obliged to provide the data subject, whose
personal data or data related to the data subject are collected, with the controller’s
identity and the purpose of the processing. Further relevant information shall also be
provided, such as the recipients or categories of recipients of the data, which can also
include processors and sub-processors, to the extent that such further information is
necessary to guarantee fair processing towards the data subject [18]. Transparency in
the above sense is also enshrined in Recitals 39 and 58 GDPR.
Transparency must also be guaranteed in the relationship between cloud client,
CSP and sub-contractors. The cloud client can assess the lawfulness of the processing
of personal data in the cloud only if the CSP keeps the cloud client up-to-date about
incidents that might occur, access requests and other issues.
Another aspect of transparency in the cloud computing context is the necessary
information the cloud client, when acting as data controller, must obtain, regarding
all the sub-contractors involved in the respective cloud service and the locations of all
data centres in which personal data may be processed. This is crucial, because only
under this condition, an assessment can be made on whether personal data may be
transferred to a third country outside of the European Economic Area which does not
ensure an adequate level of protection within the meaning of the GDPR [14].

10.5.1.2 Purpose specification and limitation

The principle of purpose specification and limitation, as defined in Article 5(1)(b)
GDPR, requires that personal data must be collected for specified, explicit and legiti-
mate purposes and not be further processed in a way incompatible with those purposes.
The cloud client, when acting as data controller, therefore, is competent to determine
the purpose(s) of the processing prior to the collection of personal data from the data
subject and inform the data subject accordingly. The cloud client is not allowed to
 Cloud computing and personal data processing 229

process personal data for other purposes, incompatible or conflicting with the origi-
nal purposes. Furthermore, the CSP, when acting as a data processor, is not allowed
use personal data for its own purposes [15,18,19]. If he does, then the CSP is a data
controller, and subsequently, all the relevant obligations for data controller apply to
this CSP.
Moreover, further processing, inconsistent with the original purpose(s), is also
prohibited for the cloud provider or one of its sub-contractors. In a typical cloud
computing scenario, a larger number of sub-contractors may be involved; therefore,
the risk of further personal data processing for incompatible purposes may be quite
high. In order to mitigate the risk of further processing, the contract between CSP and
cloud client should entail technical and organisational measures and provide guaran-
tees for the logging and auditing of relevant processing operations on personal data
that are performed by the cloud provider or the sub-contractors, either automatically
or manually (e.g. by employees).

10.5.1.3 Storage limitation

Article 5(1)(e) GDPR requires personal data to be kept in a form which permits
the identification of data subjects for no longer than necessary for the purposes for
which the data were collected. Personal data that are not necessary any more must be
erased or anonymised. If the data cannot be erased due to legal retention rules (e.g.
tax regulations), access to this personal data should be prohibited and blocked. The
responsibility to ensure that personal data are erased as soon as they are not necessary
lies with the cloud client, when acting as data controller. Erasure of data is a crucial
issue not only throughout the duration of a cloud computing contract but also upon its
termination. It is also relevant in case of substitution or withdrawal of a sub-contractor
[20]. In addition to cloud client’s responsibility, per Article 28(3)(g) GDPR, cloud
providers must also delete or return all the personal data processed within the cloud
to the controller at the end of the data processing services [17].
The principle of storage limitation is applicable to personal data irrespective of
whether they are stored on hard drives or other storage media. As personal data may be
kept at the same time on different servers at different locations, each dataset must be
deleted irreversibly (i.e. previous versions, temporary files and even file fragments)
[14,19].
Secure erasure of personal data practically means that either the storage media is
destroyed or demagnetised or the personal data stored is deleted through overwriting,
which requires special software tools [14]. The cloud client should make sure that the
cloud provider ensures secure erasure in the above sense and that the contract between
the provider and the client provides for the erasure of personal data. The same applies
for contracts between CSPs and sub-contractors [20].

10.5.1.4 Responsibility and accountability in the cloud

The principle of accountability is explicitly introduced in the GDPR. According to
Articles 5(2), 24 and 28 GDPR, data controllers and processors must be able to
ensure and demonstrate compliance with the GDPR requirements. Responsibility
and accountability are also expressed by the introduction of specific obligations such
230 Data security in cloud computing

as data protection by design and by default, data security breach notifications and
Data Protection Impact Assessments. Apart from the general improvement of the
data subject’s protection in relation to the Data Protection Directive, these enhanced
responsibilities of the data controller are also considered a major improvement for
the protection of personal data in the cloud computing environment [21].
However, the EDPS11 observes that some of the new obligations may be difficult
to comply with if the data controller is considered to be the cloud client. As mentioned
earlier, in many cases, the cloud client may be considered the data controller, due the
capacity of the cloud client to determine the means and the purposes of processing.
However, in practice, it is not always easy to match the concepts of the controller one-
to-one with the concept of the cloud client. The EDPS identifies mainly the following
of the data controller obligations, as being difficult to be carried out by the cloud
client: that is the implementation of policies to ensure that personal data processing
is compliant with the GDPR, data security requirements, DPIA, data protection by
design, data breach notifications. This is mainly because in practice such measures are
usually implemented by the CSP. The cloud client, especially in business-to-consumer
relationships, has little or no control over issues such as the security policies of the
CSP. It is therefore paradoxical to assign responsibility to the cloud client for such
issues [10].
The processor, on the basis of Article 28 GDPR, is required to co-operate with
the controller in order to fulfil the latter’s obligation to respond to data subjects’
rights and assist the data controller in ensuring compliance with the security require-
ments, data breach notifications, DPIA and prior consultation. However, the ultimate
responsibility lies on the controller [10].

10.5.2 Technical and organisational measures of data protection

and data security
The cloud clients, when acting as data controllers, are obliged12 to choose cloud
providers (processors) that guarantee the implementation of adequate technical and
organisational security measures governing the personal data processing and can
demonstrate accountability and compliance with these measures. These technical and
organisational measures should target to protect confidentiality, integrity and avail-
ability of data, by preventing inter alia unauthorised access, modification, erasure or
removal [19]. In addition, attention should be drawn to the complementary data pro-
tection goals of transparency, isolation, intervenability, accountability and portability
[14]. Article 32 GDPR highlights the implementation of technical and organisational
measures on behalf of the controller and the processor to achieve a high level of
security in personal data processing. Article 32 GDPR attributes several criteria the

11
The European Data Protection Supervisor (EDPS) is an independent supervisory authority established in
accordance with Regulation 45/2001, on the basis of article 286 of the EC Treaty. The EDPS’ mission is to
ensure that the fundamental rights and freedoms of individuals – in particular their privacy – are respected
when the EU institutions and bodies process personal data.
12
Article 28(1) GDPR.
 Cloud computing and personal data processing 231

controller and the processor need to consider when selecting technical and organi-
sational measures. Such criteria include the state of the art, the scope, context and
purposes of processing, but also the costs of implementation.
Under the GDPR, both the controller and the processor are obliged to assess
the risks identified through the processing and the nature of the data processed and
designate their measures accordingly. Regarding technical and organisational mea-
sures in cloud computing, the EDPS highlights that all parties involved, controllers
and processors, should perform risk assessments for the processing under their con-
trol, due to the complexity of cloud computing. Comprehensive risk assessment and
security management in a cloud environment requires co-operation and co-ordination
between the different parties involved, as the overall level of security is determined
by the weakest link. In a cloud environment used by multiple clients, security failures
of one client could affect the security of other clients, unless the service has provided
robust and secure measures to separate services and data between clients and make
mutual interference impossible [12]. Informing cloud users on the risk assessment and
security measures of the cloud provider and better understand their effectiveness and
limitations would enable cloud users, accordingly, to also take necessary measures,
as the EDPS further observes [10].
Compliance with security obligations may be achieved for data controllers when
they have extensive and accurate information allowing them to make the assessment
that the CSP fully complies with its security obligations as processor or controller. The
introduction of data breach notification in the GDPR (Articles 33 and 34) imposes
the obligation on data controllers to inform data protection authorities and, when
the breach is likely to result in high risk to the rights and freedoms of individ-
uals, data subjects about personal data breaches. CSPs, therefore, would have to
report any personal data breaches that occur in their services, either directly (to
the supervisory authorities and the individuals), in case they act as controllers,
or indirectly (to the cloud client who is the data controller) if they act only as
processors [12].

10.5.2.1 Availability
Providing availability means ensuring timely and reliable access to personal data.
Availability risks include infrastructure problems, such as, among others, accidental
or malicious loss of network connectivity and accidental hardware failures (either on
the network or the storage/processing systems) [14]. It is the responsibility of the data
controllers, check whether the data processor has adopted reasonable measures to
cope with the risk of interferences, such as backup internet network links, redundant
storage and effective data backup mechanisms [14].

10.5.2.2 Integrity
Data integrity relates to the maintenance and the guarantee of the authenticity,
accuracy and consistency of data over their entire life cycle. Data integrity can be
compromised during processing, storage or transmission of the data. In these cases,
the integrity of the data may be maintained, when the data are not maliciously or acci-
dentally altered. The notion of integrity can be extended to IT systems, requires that
232 Data security in cloud computing

the processing of personal data on these systems remains unmodified [14]. Personal
data modifications can be detected by cryptographic authentication mechanisms such
as message authentication codes, signatures or cryptographic hash functions (which
do not require secret keys, unlike message authentication codes and signatures). Inter-
ference with the integrity of IT systems in the cloud can be prevented or detected by
means of intrusion detection/prevention systems (IPS/IDS) [14].

10.5.2.3 Confidentiality
The cloud client, when acting as a data controller, must guarantee that the personal
data under its responsibility can only be accessed by authorised persons. In a cloud
environment, encryption may significantly contribute to the confidentiality of per-
sonal data, if applied correctly [15]. Encrypting personal data does not mean that
the individual is no more identifiable. As the technical data fragmentation processes
that may be used in the framework of the provision of cloud computing services,
such as encryption, do not render data irreversibly anonymous, data protection obli-
gations still apply [20]. Encryption of personal data may be used in all cases when
‘in transit’ and when available to data ‘at rest’ [15]. This should be particularly the
case for data controllers who intend to transfer sensitive data to the cloud or who are
subject to specific legal obligations of professional secrecy. In some cases, (e.g. an
IaaS storage service) a cloud client may not rely on an encryption solution offered
by the CSP but may choose to encrypt personal data prior to sending them to the
cloud. Encrypting data at rest requires attention to cryptographic key management
as data security then ultimately depends on the confidentiality of the encryption
keys [19].
Communications between CSP and cloud client as well as between data centres
should also be encrypted. Remote administration of the cloud platform should only
take place via a secure communication channel. If a cloud client plans to not only
store but also to further process personal data in the cloud, he must bear in mind that
encryption cannot be maintained during processing of the data [19].When encryption
is chosen as a technical measure to secure data, security of the encryption key is crucial,
through a robust key management arrangement. It is also important to note that the loss
of an encryption key could render the data useless. This could amount to the accidental
destruction of personal data and therefore a breach of the security and confidentiality
principle [15]. Further technical measures aiming at ensuring confidentiality include
authorisation mechanisms and strong authentication (e.g. two-factor authentication).
Contractual clauses may also impose confidentiality obligations on employees of
cloud clients, CSPs and sub-contractors [14].

10.5.2.4 Isolation
Isolation is linked to the purpose limitation principle. Even though not a legal term,
it can be generally said that in technical terms, isolation of the data serves the data
protection principle of purpose limitation. In cloud infrastructures, resources such
as storage, memory and networks are shared among many users. This creates new
risks for data and renders the possibility of disclosure and further processing for
illegitimate purposes quite high. Isolation as a protective goal, therefore, is meant
 Cloud computing and personal data processing 233

to address this issue and ensure that data are not used beyond their initial original
purpose and maintain confidentiality and integrity [14].
Isolation may be achieved first by adequate governance and regular review of the
rights and roles for accessing personal data. The implementation of roles with exces-
sive privileges should be avoided (e.g. no user or administrator should be authorised
to access the entire cloud). More generally, administrators and users must only be
able to access the information that is necessary for their legitimate purposes (least
privilege principle) [14].

10.5.2.5 Intervenability
The data subjects have the rights of access, rectification, erasure, restriction and
objection to the data processing [22]. The cloud client must verify that the cloud
provider does not impose technical and organisational obstacles to the exercise of
those rights, even in cases when data are further processed by sub-contractors. The
contract between the client and the CSP should demand that the cloud provider is
obliged to support the client in facilitating exercise of data subjects’ rights and to
ensure that the same is safeguarded for its relation to any sub-contractor [14].

10.5.2.6 Portability
The use of standard data formats and service interfaces by the cloud providers is very
important, as it facilitates inter-operability and portability between different cloud
providers. Therefore, if a cloud client decides to move to another cloud provider,
any lack of inter-operability may result in the impossibility or at least difficulties
to transfer the client’s (personal) data to the new cloud provider (‘vendor lock-in’).
The same problem also appears for services that the client developed on a platform
offered by the original cloud provider (PaaS). The cloud client should check whether
and how the provider guarantees the portability of data and services prior to ordering
a cloud service. Preferably, the provider should make use of standardised or open data
formats and interfaces. Agreement on contractual clauses stipulating assured formats,
preservation of logical relations and any costs accruing from the migration to another
cloud provider could be considered guarantees [14].
Data portability is defined in Article 20 and Recital 68 GDPR as an instrument
to further strengthen the control of the data subject over its own data: the data sub-
ject should be allowed to receive personal data concerning the data subject which it
provided to a controller in a structured, commonly used, machine-readable and inter-
operable format, and to transmit it to another controller. To implement this right,
it is important that, once the data have been transferred, no trace is left in the original
system. In technical terms, it should be possible to verify the secure erasure of data
[10,12].

10.5.2.7 IT accountability
In terms of data protection, IT accountability has a broad scope: it refers to the ability
of the parties involved in personal data processing to provide evidence that they took
appropriate measures to ensure compliance with the data protection principles [14].
234 Data security in cloud computing

IT accountability is particularly important to examine personal data breaches, based

on the degree of responsibility of each cloud actor.
Furthermore, cloud providers should provide documentary evidence of appropri-
ate and effective measures that ensure the application of the data protection principles
outlined in the previous sections. Procedures to ensure the identification of all data
processing operations, to respond to access requests, the allocation of resources
including the designation of data protection officers who are responsible for the
organisation of data protection compliance, or independent certification procedures
are examples of such measures. In addition, data controllers should ensure that they
are prepared to demonstrate the setting up of the necessary measures to the competent
supervisory authority upon request [12].

10.5.3 Data protection impact assessments in cloud computing

Article 35 GDPR introduces an obligation for the data controller or the processor
acting on the controller’s behalf to carry out DPIAs in the event that the relevant
processing operations present significant risks to the rights and freedoms of the data
subjects.13 As the use of cloud computing services for personal data processing could
sometimes involve specific data protection risks, DPIAs constitute a useful instrument
for the identification of these risks and the determination of appropriate mitigation
measures. The EDPS highlights the importance of carrying out DPIAs on the use of
cloud computing services by the public sector, especially when the processing may
involve sensitive data (such as health data, data revealing political opinions, etc.)
[10,23].

10.5.4 Audits and certifications

Another crucial aspect that directly affects the accountability principle and the appli-
cation of its requirements in the cloud computing context is the interaction of various
parties along the end-to-end value chain to deliver the service to the end customer. It
is of utmost importance that these multiple actors trust each other to act responsibly
and in co-ordination and take appropriate measures to ensure that data processing
operations are carried out in compliance with data protection rules [10,24].
In this respect, internal and trusted third-party audits and subsequent certifi-
cations are valuable in attesting verifying responsibility and accountability when
multiple actors are involved. Such audits should themselves be based on appropriate
certification schemes. The GDPR establishes data protection certification mecha-
nisms in Articles 42 and 43, which include third-party audit with strong involvement
of the data protection authorities [25].
Articles 24 and 25 GDPR frame the responsibility of the data controller and
specify the data protection by design and by default measures to be taken. Among
others, the GDPR requires that the controller implements mechanisms to ensure that
the effectiveness of those data protection measures can be verified. This can be done

13
The list of the processing operations where data protection impact assessments should be mandatory is
non-exhaustive.
 Cloud computing and personal data processing 235

by independent internal or external auditors. Article 28, accordingly, specifies the data
protection measures that the processors must take. Besides these provisions, cloud-
computing-specific codes of conduct drawn up by the industry and approved by the
relevant data protection authorities could also be a useful tool to improve compliance
and trust among the various actors. The codes of conduct model are present both in
Directive 95/46/EC and the GDPR (Articles 27 and 40, respectively, Recitals 77 and
98 GDPR are also relevant) [10].

10.6 Data flows and appropriate safeguards

Data flows are an important part of the cloud computing model. From a legal perspec-
tive, the transfer of data from one cloud server to another could mean application of
different legislation, per the governing law. The governing (applicable law) depends as
discussed in Section 10.2, on the location, but also other conditions, such as the target
of the offered cloud service [26]. Cloud computing services rely on the continuous
flows of data of cloud clients across CSPs’ infrastructure. Data are being transferred
from the cloud clients to cloud providers’ servers and data centres located in various
parts of the world. The cloud client is therefore rarely able to know in real time where
the data are located or stored or transferred [10].
The EU data protection legislation, both the Directive 95/46/EC and the new
GDPR, include safeguards and provisions that enable such transfers. A cloud client
or CSP acting as data controller need to both preserve the necessary safeguards for the
protection of personal data in the framework of the general accountability principle,
but also make use of the means established in the legislation for legitimate data
transfers. Due to the challenges with continuous relocation of data, applying the
data transfers requirements of EU data protection legislation in the cloud computing
environment is challenging and has limitations [27].
The GDPR adopts similar data transfer rules to the existing Directive 95/46/EC
regime. At the same time, there are some important novelties that lead to key
implications. Article 44 GDPR requires that not only controllers but also proces-
sors implement appropriate safeguards for international data transfers [10]. This
constitutes a significant step for the cloud computing environment, which imposes
significant obligations also to CSPs acting as data processors [10,12].

10.6.1 Adequacy decisions14

The application of data transfer rules is usually based on an assessment of whether
there is an adequate level of protection in the countries where the data are going to
be transferred.15 This assessment is made by the European Commission and followed

14
Under the current legal framework, the Commission has adopted several adequacy decisions with respect
to Andorra, Argentina, Australia, Canada, Switzerland, Faeroe Islands, Guernsey, State of Israel, Isle of
Man, Jersey, US PNR and the US Safe Harbor. Such decisions will remain in force until amended, replaced
or repealed by a Commission Decision (article 45(9) GDPR).
15
Article 46 GDPR.
236 Data security in cloud computing

by an adequacy decision. However, as stated above, cloud computing services most

frequently do not have any stable location of the data and personal data may not remain
permanently in each location. Furthermore, some service providers may refuse to
inform where the cloud servers are located [10]. Adequacy decisions, including the
EU-US Data Privacy Shield [28], have limited geographical scope and may have
uncertain results if challenged in court [29]. However, they usually require less effort
from the part of data controller, in comparison to the other ways to transfer data
outside the EU, while preserving a high level of data protection, guaranteed by the
EU data protection law.

10.6.2 Alternative ways for data transfers by means of ‘appropriate

safeguards’
Article 46 of the GDPR provides a restrictive list of conditions under which personal
data may be transferred by a data controller or processor to a third country outside the
EU or an international organisation in the absence of an adequacy decision, without
the authorisation of the supervisory authority. Necessary requirement for all the
alternative grounds for transfers is the availability of enforceable data subject rights
and of effective legal remedies for the data subjects. According to Article 29 Working
Party, though, such alternative ways should not be the grounds for recurrent, massive
or structural transfers, but rather be relied upon ‘exceptionally’ [30].16 In practice, in
the absence of an adequacy decision, the alternative ways for transfers are the only
way to ensure that a CSP continues to provide its services in compliance with the EU
data protection law.
Taking a closer look at the alternative grounds for data transfers, in this section,
we outline the grounds of Article 46 GDRP, which is relevant to cloud computing
data flows. Standard data protection clauses (Article 46(2)(c)(d)) are either adopted
by the European Commission or adopted by the national data protection authorities
and approved by the European Commission for governing international data trans-
fers between two controllers or one controller and a processor. They are, therefore,
based on a bilateral approach. When the cloud provider is processor, model clauses
2010/87/EC is an instrument that can be used between the processor and the controller
as a basis for the cloud computing environment to offer adequate safeguards in the
context of international transfers [27].
The EDPS has commented that Article 46 GDPR facilitates the use of several
types of contractual clauses, either standard or ad hoc. This flexibility might be
particularly useful for CSPs, as they have the option to enter whichever category they
wish, tailored to their specific needs. However, whichever are the clauses chosen by

16
More specifically, these exemptions, which are tightly drawn, for the most part concern cases where
the risks to the data subject are relatively small or where other interests (public interests or those of the
data subject himself) override the data subject’s right to privacy. As exemptions from a general principle,
they must be interpreted restrictively. Furthermore Member States may provide in domestic law for the
exemptions not to apply in particular cases. This might be the case, for example, where it is necessary to
protect particularly vulnerable groups of individuals, such as workers or patients. [10].
 Cloud computing and personal data processing 237

the CSPs, they should all contain minimum guarantees on essential aspects. These
guarantees might include the requirement to enter into written agreement with sub-
processors, by which they commit to the same data protection obligations, prior
information/notices of the cloud customer on the use of sub-processors, audit clause,
third-party beneficiary rights, rules on liability and damages, supervision, etc. [10].
In addition to the standard contractual clauses (SCCs), cloud providers could offer
customers provisions that build on their pragmatic experiences as long as they do not
contradict, directly or indirectly, the SCCs approved by the Commission or prejudice
fundamental rights or freedoms of the data subjects [31]. Nevertheless, the companies
may not amend or change the SCCs without implying that the clauses will no longer
be ‘standard’ [31].
Another ground is binding corporate rules (BCRs). BCRs are personal data
protection policies adhered to by the controller or processor established in an EU
Member State. These policies facilitate transfers of personal data to a controller or
processor in one or more third countries within a group of undertakings or a group of
enterprises engaged in a joint economic activity (Article 4(20) GDPR). Thus, BCRs
refer to data transfers within the same company, for instance the CSP establishments
in several countries or companies with a joint economic activity. Article 29 Working
Party has developed (based on the Directive 95/46/EC) BCRs for processors which
will allow the transfer within the group for the benefit of the controllers without
requiring the signature of contracts between processor and sub-processors per client
[32]. Such BCRs for processors would enable the provider’s client to entrust their
personal data to the processor while being assured that the data transferred within
the provider’s business scope would receive an adequate level of protection [14]. The
GDPR includes (Article 47 GDPR) detailed minimum content requirements for the
BCRs to be a valid ground for data transfers, such as: the legally binding nature,
complaint procedures, personnel training, tasks of the data protection officer and
others.
Another ground for data transfers likely to be widely used in the case of cloud
computing is the soft law grounds, i.e. approved codes of conduct and approved data
protection certifications. Adherence to approved codes of conduct and certifications
based on the conditions of the GDPR may bring several benefits to data controllers and
processors in terms of accountability, administrative fines imposed by the data pro-
tection authorities (Article 83 GDPR) and data transfers. The process of conforming
to such soft law instruments might entail intensive third-party audits (for instance
from accredited certification bodies indicated in Article 43 GDPR) and follow-up
activities to maintain the certification and the seal. The cloud clients and service
providers, however, might consider choosing this option, as it is more flexible than
standard data protection clauses and BCRs. Transfers by means of codes of conduct
or certification mechanisms need to be accompanied with binding and enforceable
commitments on behalf of the controller or processor in the third country, that they
shall apply the appropriate safeguards, including those concerning data subject rights.
Data transfers in the absence of an adequacy decision can also be based on
contractual clauses between controller or processor and the controller, processor or
recipient of the personal data in the third country or organisation, after authorisation
238 Data security in cloud computing

of the competent supervisory authority (Article 46 (3) GDPR). This ground can also
be relevant for cloud actors.

10.7 Conclusions
The use of cloud computing models facilitates and accelerates the creation and pro-
cessing of big data collections and the production of new services and applications.
When these big data collections contain personal data, specific risks and challenges
for privacy and data protection arise, and appropriate safeguards are imperative to be
implemented.
Privacy and data protection in the context of cloud computing must not, in any
case, be inferior to the level of protection required in any other data processing context.
The cloud computing model can only be developed and applied legally if the data
protection standards are not lowered compared to those applicable in conventional
data processing operations.
The extra-territorial effect of the new EU GDPR induces not only broader legal
rules but also new challenges. Not only EU, but also non-EU cloud computing service
providers are highly affected and need to be aware of the updated EU data protection
framework to process personal data in compliance with their legal obligations. Cloud
providers, not established in the EU, that offer targeted services to individuals in the
EU, irrespectively of whether these individuals are citizens of an EU Member State,
are governed by the GDPR regarding the data processing activities concerning those
individuals.
The cloud client-cloud provider relationship is often a data controller–processor
relationship. Exceptionally, the cloud provider may act as a controller and, therefore,
have full responsibility for compliance with all the legal obligations deriving from
EU data protection law, or a joint controller together with the cloud client. The cloud
client, when acting as a data controller, is also responsible for selecting a CSP that
guarantees compliance with EU data protection legislation. The GDPR renders both
data controllers and data processors directly liable for certain EU data protection law
requirements, such as accountability, data security and data breach notifications.
As far as contracts between CSPs and cloud clients are concerned, sub-processors
may only be delegated if the controller consents to such activity. Furthermore, CSPs’
contracts with sub-contractors should stipulate the provisions of the original contract
with the cloud client.
The GDPR requirements in the context of cloud computing may be divided into
two broad categories: (1) compliance with the fundamental data processing principles
and (2) technical and organisational measures implementation.
Transparency entails the detailed provision of information on behalf of the cloud
providers to the cloud clients about all data protection relevant aspects of their services
and, accordingly, the relevant notifications to the data subjects by the cloud clients.
The purpose specification principle guarantees that the cloud client does not process
personal data for further purposes, other than the original(s), by the cloud provider
or any sub-contractors. Furthermore, once personal data are no longer necessary
 Cloud computing and personal data processing 239

for the specific purposes they were collected and processed, the cloud client must
ensure that they are erased from wherever they are stored. Finally, the cloud client
and the CSP must be able to ensure and demonstrate accountability through the
adoption and implementation of appropriate data protection policies and technical and
organisational measures that their processing activities comply with the requirements
of the EU Data Protection Law.
Regarding technical and organisational measures, such measures should be guar-
anteed and included in the contract between the cloud client and the cloud provider
and be reflected in the provider and sub-contractors’ relationship. Technical measures
must ensure availability, integrity and confidentiality of the data. Isolation is a pro-
tective goal, which is meant to address the risk that data is used beyond its initial
original purpose and to maintain confidentiality and integrity.
Moreover, the data subjects have the rights to access, rectification, erasure, block-
ing and objection. The exercise of the data subject rights should be assisted by the cloud
service provider. Interoperability and data portability are facilitated using standard
data formats and service interfaces by the cloud providers.
In case of cross-border transfers, the EU data protection legislation, both the
Directive 95/46/EC and the new GDPR, includes safeguards and provisions that enable
such transfers. A cloud client or cloud provider acting as data controller needs to pre-
serve the necessary safeguards for the protection of personal data in the framework of
the general accountability principle, but also make use of the means established in the
legislation for legitimate data transfers. The GDPR requires that not only controllers
but also processors implement appropriate safeguards for international data transfers.
In the absence of an adequacy decision, transfers of data to non-adequate third coun-
tries require specific safeguards via the use of special arrangements (e.g. the EU-US
Privacy Shield), Standard Contractual Clauses or Binding Corporate Rules.

References
[1] Mell P., Grance T. ‘The NIST definition of cloud computing’. Communications
of the ACM. 2010;53(6):50.
[2] European Commission. European Cloud Initiative – Building a Competi-
tive Data and Knowledge Economy in Europe. Communication from the
Commission to the European Parliament, the Council, the European
Economic and Social Committee and the Committee of the Regions,
COM (2016) 178 final, 2016. Available from: https://ec.europa.eu/digital-
single-market / en / news/ communication-european-cloud-initiative-building-
competitive-data-and-knowledge-economy-europe.
[3] ENISA. Security Resilience in Governmental Clouds. 2011. Avail-
able from: https://www.enisa.europa.eu/publications/security-and-resilience-
in-governmental-clouds.
[4] ENISA. Cloud Computing: Benefits, Risks and Recommendations for Infor-
mation Security. 2009. Available from: http://www.enisa.europa.eu/act/rm/
files/deliverables/cloud-computing-risk-assessment/at_download/fullReport.
240 Data security in cloud computing

[5] European Parliament and Council of the European Union. Regulation 2016/679
of the European Parliament and of the Council of 27 April 2016 on the protec-
tion of natural persons with regard to the processing of personal data and on
the free movement of such data, and repealing Directive 95/46/EC (General
Data Protection Regulation), L 119/14.5.2016.
[6] De Hert, P., Czerniawski M. ‘Expanding the European data protection scope
beyond territory: Article 3 of the General Data Protection Regulation in
its wider context’. International Data Privacy Law. 2016; 6(3):230–243.
doi:10.1093/idpl/ipw008.
[7] Hon W.K., Hörnle J., Millard C. ‘Data protection jurisdiction and cloud com-
puting – When are cloud users and providers subject to EU data protection law.
The cloud of unknowing’. International Review of Law, Computers & Technol-
ogy. 2012; 26(2–3):129–164, p. 33. Available from: http://www.tandfonline.
com/doi/abs/10.1080/13600869.2012.698843.
[8] Svantesson D.J.B. ‘Extraterritoriality and targeting in EU data privacy law:
The weak spot undermining the regulation’. International Data privacy Law.
2015;5:230–33.
[9] European Parliament and Council. Directive 95/46/EC of the European Parlia-
ment and of the Council of 24 October 1995 on the protection of individuals
with regard to the processing of personal data and on the free movement of
such data (Data Protection Directive). OJ L 281, 23.11.1995.
[10] European Data Protection Supervisor. ‘Opinion of 16 November 2012 on
the Commission’s Communication on “Unleashing the potential of Cloud
Computing in Europe”’. 2012. Available from: https://secure.edps.europa.eu/
EDPSWEB/webdav/shared/Documents/Consultation / Opinions / 2012 / 12-11-
16_Cloud_Computing_EN.pdf, p. 14.
[11] European Parliament and the Council. Directive 2002/58/EC of the European
Parliament and of the Council of 12 July 2002 concerning the processing
of personal data and the protection of privacy in the electronic communi-
cations sector (Directive on privacy and electronic communications), OJ L
201, 31.07.2002 p. 37, as amended by European Parliament and the Council,
Directive 2009/136/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 25
November 2009, OJ L 337, 18.12.2009.
[12] Hon W.K., Kosta E., Millard C., Stefanatou D. ‘Cloud accountability: The
likely impact of the proposed EU data protection regulation’. Queen Mary
School of Law Legal Studies Research Paper. 2014(172). Available from:
http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/Papers.cfm?abstract_id=2405971.
[13] Article 29 Data Protection Working Party. ‘Opinion 1/2010 on the con-
cepts of “controller” and “processor” WP 169’. 2010. Available from:
http://ec.europa.eu/justice/data-protection/article-29/documentation/opinion-
recommendation/files/2010/wp169_en.pdf.
[14] Article 29 Data Protection Working Party. ‘Opinion 05/2012 on Cloud
Computing’ WP 196, 2012. Available from: http://ec.europa.eu/justice/data-
protection / article-29 / documentation / opinion-recommendation / files / 2012 /
wp196_en.pdf.
 Cloud computing and personal data processing 241

[15] Information Commissioner’s Office. ‘Guidance on the use of Cloud Com-

puting’, 2012. Available from: https://ico.org.uk/media/for-organisations/
documents/1540/cloud_computing_guidance_for_organisations.pdf.
[16] Hon W.K., Millard C., Walden I. ‘Who is responsible for “personal data” in
cloud computing? – The cloud of unknowing, Part 2’. International Data
Privacy Law. 2012; 2(1):3–18. Available from: http://idpl.oxfordjournals.org/
content/2/1/3.short.
[17] Webber M. ‘The GDPR impact on the cloud service provider as a processor’
Privacy and Data Protection (PDP Journals). 2016;16(4):11–14.
[18] Kamarinou D., Millard C., Hon W.K. ‘Privacy in the clouds: An empirical
study of the terms of service and privacy policies of 20 cloud service providers’.
Queen Mary School of Law Legal Studies Research Paper 209, 2015. Available
from: http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/Papers.cfm?abstract_id=2646447.
[19] International Working Group on Data Protection in Telecommunications.
‘Working paper on cloud computing – Privacy and data protection issues –
“Sopot Memorandum”’. 2012. Available from: https://datenschutz-berlin.de/
content/europa-international/international-working-group-on-data-protection-
in - telecommunications - iwgdpt / working - papers - and - common - positions -
adopted-by-the-working-group.
[20] Hon WK., Millard C., Walden I. ‘The problem of “personal data” in cloud
computing: What information is regulated? – The cloud of unknowing’. Inter-
national Data Privacy Law. 2011;1(4):211–228. Available from: http://idpl.
oxfordjournals.org/content/1/4/211.short.
[21] Article 29 Data Protection Working Party. ‘Opinion 08/2012 provid-
ing further input on the data protection reform discussions’. WP
199, 2012. Available from: http://ec.europa.eu/justice/dataprotection/article-
29/documentation/opinion-recommendation/files/2012/wp199_en.pdf.
[22] Articles 15-22 GDPR.
[23] European Data Protection Supervisor. ‘Opinion of 7 March 2012 on the
data protection reform package’. 2012. Available from: https://secure.edps.
europa.eu / EDPSWEB / webdav /site/mySite/shared/Documents/Consultation/
Opinions/2012/12-03-07_EDPS_Reform_package_EN.pdf.
[24] Article 29 Data Protection Working Party. ‘Opinion 3/2010 on the princi-
ple of accountability’. WP 173, 2010. Available from: http://ec.europa.eu/
justice/policies/privacy/docs/wpdocs/2010/wp173_en.pdf.
[25] Kamara I., De Hert P. ‘Data protection certification in the EU. Possibilities,
actors and building blocks in a reformed landscape; data protection certi-
fication in the EU general data protection regulation’, in Rodrigues R. and
Papakonstantinou V. (eds.) Privacy and Data Protection Seals, TMC Asser
Press, 2017 (forthcoming).
[26] Konstantinou I., Quinn P., De Hert P. ‘Overview of applicable legal frame-
work and general legal requirements: Deliverable 3.1 for the SeCloud project’.
SeCloud project, 2016.
[27] Hon W.K., Millard C., Walden I. ‘Data export in cloud computing –
How can personal data be transferred outside the EEA. The cloud of
242 Data security in cloud computing

unknowing, Part 4’. 2012. Available from: http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/

papers.cfm?abstract_id=2034286.
[28] European Commission. Available from: http://ec.europa.eu/justice/data-
protection/international-transfers/eu-us-privacy-shield/index_en.htm.
[29] Judgment of the Court (Grand Chamber) of 6 October 2015 (request for a
preliminary ruling from the High Court (Ireland)) – Maximillian Schrems v
Data Protection Commissioner, Case C-362/14.
[30] Article 29 Data Protection Working Party. ‘Working document 12/1998: Trans-
fers of personal data to third countries: Applying Articles 25 and 26 of
the EU data protection directive’.1998. Available from: http://ec.europa.eu/
justice/policies/privac1y/docs/wpdocs/1998/wp12_en.pdf.
[31] European Commission. ‘Can companies include the standard contractual
clauses in a wider contract and add specific clauses?’ Published by the EC on
http: // ec.europa.eu / justice / policies/privacy/docs/international_transfers_faq/
international_transfers_faq.pdf.
[32] Article 29 Data Protection Working Party. ‘Working document 02/2012 setting
up a table with the elements and principles to be found in Processor Binding
Corporate Rules’. 2012. Available from: http://ec.europa.eu/justice/data-
protection/article-29/documentation/opinion-recommendation/files / 2012/wp
195_en.pdf.
 Chapter 11
The Waikato Data Privacy Matrix
Craig Scoon1 and Ryan K. L. Ko1

Abstract
Data privacy is an expected right of most citizens around the world, but there are many
legislative challenges within the boundary-less cloud computing and World Wide Web
environments.
The Waikato Data Privacy Matrix outlines our global project for alignment of
data privacy laws, by focusing on Asia Pacific data privacy laws and its relationships
with the European Union and the United States. Some alignment already exists for
the European Union and United States, there is a lack of research on Asia Pacific
alignment within its region and across other regions. The Waikato Data Privacy Matrix
also suggests potential solutions to address some of the issues that may occur when a
breach of data privacy occurs, in order to ensure an individual has their data privacy
protected across the boundaries within the Web.

11.1 Introduction

Privacy of an individual is a widely discussed issue in the legal arena, but with the
introduction of cloud services, privacy concerns have also made their way into the
computing realm [1]. Laws made by governments can sometimes be confusing to an
everyday citizen. In recent years, legislation has been enacted to protect the privacy of
an individual or society, but this has come under fire [2]. These discussions have been
fuelled by the large amount of media coverage and publicity about leaks of personal
data, and breaches of data privacy, including the case of the 2013 National Security
Agency (NSA) leaks [3]. A result of this publicity has meant an increased awareness in
data privacy limitations and rights, which highlighted a need for clarification around
trans-national legislation and an effective way of aligning them with other countries
so an everyday user (e.g. consumer and small businesses) can understand any privacy
concerns that may relate to them or their data processed or stored by third parties.

1
Cyber Security Lab, University of Waikato, New Zealand
244 Data security in cloud computing

The emergence of the Internet of Things (IoT) [4] and the adoption of cloud
services [5] presents important research foci towards ensuring users and vendors
can put trust in these technologies and services by knowing the requirements of
different countries’ legislation. The amount of data and personal information stored
or transferred to servers across trans-national jurisdictions, in which devices reside,
creates a need for a better understanding of global data privacy legislation that may
create repercussions for their business or privacy.
There are many legislative challenges within boundary-less cloud computing and
World Wide Web environments. Despite its importance, the legal side of the security
ecosystem seems to be in a constant effort to catch-up. There are recent issues showing
a lack of alignment that caused some confusion. An example of this is the “right to be
forgotten” case in 2014 that involved a Spanish man and Google Spain. He requested
the removal of a link to an article about an auction of his foreclosed home, for a debt
that he had subsequently paid. However, misalignment of data privacy laws caused
further complications to the case.
The Waikato Data Privacy Matrix (WDPM) provides an easy way to cross ref-
erence different trans-national legislation that align with a set of predefined domain
areas. Assisting a user to see what laws are governing their data wherever in the world
that data may be located. The WDPM can also be utilised by governments, and in
particular the legislature, to see gaps which may appear in their own legislation and
allow them to propose changes to improve or align with the rest of the countries.

11.2 Background

11.2.1 Justification
Many users of cloud services do not have a legal background or legal understand-
ing. Cloud services have been incorporated into everyday life, and the geographical
boundaries which once contained a legal jurisdiction are now being blurred. Legisla-
tion is an important function in society, set down by the legislature, to govern what
are acceptable behaviours, and punishments if these behaviours are not followed.
Cloud users and vendors need to know what legislation will impact on them and
their data wherever it is in the world.
The Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet (DPMC) in New Zealand
released the updated Cyber Security strategy, on 10 December 2015, replacing the
2011 version. The strategy outlines the government’s response to addressing the threat
of cybercrime to New Zealanders. Connect Smart conducted a survey in 2014 on cyber
security practises; 83% of those surveyed said they had experienced a data breach in
some way (22% saying they had email accounts compromised). The scary side to that
statistic is 61% of those did nothing to change their behaviour [6]. The new version
has four principles:
● partnerships are essential
● economic growth is enabled
● national security is upheld
● human rights are protected online
 Waikato Data Privacy Matrix 245

Cyber resilience involves detection, protection and recovery from cyber incidents,
and looking to create action plans for disaster recovery from cyber incidents.
Cyber capability refers to educating the public and providing them with the
necessary tools they may need. It focuses on individuals, businesses, government
departments and organisations to build better cyber security capabilities and aware-
ness. The success of this goal will allow all levels of New Zealanders to have the
knowledge and tools available to protect themselves against a cyber threat. This prin-
ciple should also have the potential to increase the skills in the cyber security industry,
allowing businesses and organisations to have the technical staff to support the rest
of their information technology (IT) team.
Addressing cybercrime looks at prevention of cybercrime, but also has an extra
component, in the “National Plan to Address Cybercrime”, which identifies cyber-
crime issues and challenges and ways they can be addressed. Most of this is from
awareness so the public can help themselves.
International co-operation is the last goal which is vital to mitigating risk within
cybercrime. This looks at building international partnerships within the Asia Pacific
(APAC) region.
New Zealand is not the only country to release a new cyber security strategy [7].
Australia released their 4-year strategy in April 2016 which outlines five themes:
● a national cyber partnership
● strong cyber defences
● global responsibility and influence
● growth and innovation
● a cyber smart nation
TheAustralian and New Zealand strategies have similar goals in mind – ultimately
educating citizens, and providing tools and international co-operation.
Thousands of new businesses are started every year, some of these will not even
get off the ground and out of the ones that do, around 10% will fail within the first
year and around 70% will fail within 5 years [8]. One of the biggest points of failure
comes down to the business revenue. Even a company which is semi established that
needs to break out into an overseas market to get more customers, may not have
enough revenue to hire a legal team or even a single professional, to give them all
of the legal advice to successfully launch their business in an overseas jurisdiction.
Legal bills can be very expensive. Although legislation is freely available in most
countries around the world it may not be easy to navigate.

11.2.2 Cloud computing

Cloud computing started in 1999 when Salesforce became one of the first major
companies to move into the cloud business. Salesforce started the concept of providing
enterprise-level applications to any user providing they had Internet access [9].
Amazon Web Services were launched in 2002 offering a suite of cloud-based ser-
vices for customers, including storage and computation. In 2006 Amazon introduced
its Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2) to the public [10]. A survey conducted by Synergy
Research Group in 2016 found that Amazon controlled 31% of the cloud market share
246 Data security in cloud computing

for the first quarter in 2016 [11]. This is the same as the result for this survey when
conducted for 2015 fourth quarter, with Microsoft, IBM and Google coming in under
Amazon [12].
In January 2016, RightScale – an organisation deploying and managing appli-
cations in the cloud – conducted its annual State of the Cloud Survey of the latest
cloud computing trends which focuses on cloud users and cloud buyers. There were
1,060 IT professionals who participated in the survey, and of these participants 95%
were using cloud services [13]. To utilise cloud computing, it is essential to have
multiple data centres located in different parts of the country or the world, to ensure
lower latency for the customers using the cloud service. Google has many data servers
scattered across the globe, but it is unclear the precise number of data centres that
Google operates [14]. Although this is good for users who have their data stored in
these places, it makes it difficult to know what laws apply to their data. Even if a user
has data stored in the United States (US) their data may be subjected to different state
laws depending on which part of the country it is stored in. What makes matters more
unclear is when a user has their data stored in multiple data centres in different parts
of the world. Internet addresses are not physical addresses, which allows them to be
easily spoofed, making it harder to locate where the data came from or showing the
data is residing in an entirely different country. There is a clear need for policy makers
to collaborate on these laws so there is a global alignment which does not produce
any surprises for users of these services.

11.2.3 NSA leaks

In 2013, Edward Snowden – a former employee of defence contractor in Booz Allen
Hamilton at the NSA – released classified information relating to numerous global
surveillance programs, many of which were run by the NSA and the Five Eyes
Alliance. Snowden met with two reporters from the British daily newspaper – The
Guardian, where he revealed top secret classified information relating to the clan-
destine surveillance program known as PRISM, and other information about covert
spying operations carried out by the US government on its citizens. It was originally
thought that Snowden downloaded 1.5 million documents but only shared around
200,000 [15] with the two original journalists from The Guardian. However this has
not been confirmed.
The leaked documents revealed how the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court
(FISC) had ordered Verizon – an American telecommunications company – to hand
over millions of customers’ telephone records [16]. This was not so the NSA could
pry into the content of these calls, but it did allow the NSA’s computers to look
through the millions of phone records for patterns or unusual types of behaviour [17].
This practice had been going on for approximately 7 years, on a 3 monthly renewal
system.
The documents also revealed top-secret procedures that showed steps the NSA
must take to target and collect data from “non-US citizens” and how it must minimise
data collected on its own US citizens. There were also documents relating to a program
codenamed “EvilOlive” [18] which collected and stored large amounts of Internet
 Waikato Data Privacy Matrix 247

metadata from US citizens, including sender, recipient, and time stamp of email
correspondences from Internet users [19].
Since the leaks, the InformationTechnology and Innovation Foundation (ITIF), an
industry-funded think tank that focuses on the intersection of technological innovation
and public policy, estimated the leaks could cost cloud computing companies up to
$35 billion in lost revenue [3].
The fallout from this exposure forced countries that were using data centres in the
US to open data centres in their own countries or look for other places to store data.
Russia received this news and passed a new law which required all tech companies
inside Russian borders to only use servers located within Russia. This is one way of
not having to worry about a global alignment, but it is an extremely high cost for the
companies to use backyard data centres [3]. It also forced users of cloud services to
look into where their data was going to be stored or if it would be moved from the US
centres to another part of the world where the laws were unknown to them.

11.2.4 PRISM
The PRISM program was launched in 2007 after the enactment of the Foreign Intelli-
gence Surveillance Act (FISA). PRISM was carried out by the NSA to collect stored
Internet communications and use data mining techniques to look for patterns of ter-
rorist or other potential criminal activity within the communications. There were at
least nine major US Internet companies participating in this program which included
Microsoft in 2007, Yahoo in 2008, Google, Facebook and Paltalk in 2009, YouTube
in 2010, AOL and Skype in 2011 and Apple in 2012 [20]. The basic idea behind the
program was for the NSA to have the ability to request data on specific persons of
interest. Permission is given by the FISC, a special federal court setup by the FISA.
There are still questions about the operation of the FISC and if its actions are in breach
of the US constitution.

11.2.5 Trans-national agreements

To protect data privacy within the European Union (EU), the data protection directive
was enacted in 1995. This directive only applied to a participating EU member coun-
try which meant that data could not be transferred outside of the EU. The EU–US
Umbrella Agreement is a framework to enable co-operation between law enforce-
ment efforts between the EU and US which covers all categories of personal data
exchanged between the two countries. This agreement is purely for the purpose of
prevention, detection, investigation and prosecution of criminal offences, including
terrorism [21].

11.2.6 Safe harbor to privacy shield

The Safe HarborAgreement was launched in 2000 after the European Commission and
the Department of Commerce of the United States agreed it had adequate protection
for transferring data from the EU to the US. Thirteen years later, the Safe Harbor
Agreement began to come under fire in the wake of the Snowden leaks, and by
248 Data security in cloud computing

October 2015 the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) had declared the
Safe Harbor invalid, after the case of Max Schrems.
After the invalidation, a draft of the new EU–US Privacy Shield [22] emerged. The
draft Privacy Shield was announced in February 2016, and is an adaption of the Safe
Harbor Agreement. In a press release in February 2016 the European Commission
stated that the new Privacy Shield would “provide stronger obligations on companies
in the European Union (EU) to protect the personal data of Europeans and stronger
monitoring and enforcement by the US Department of Commerce and Federal Trade
Commission, including through increased co-operation with European Data Protec-
tion Authorities” [23]. Three new elements were included in the new Privacy Shield
framework:

● strong obligations on companies handling Europeans’ personal data, and robust

enforcement
● clear safeguards and transparency obligations on US government access
● effective protection of EU citizens’ rights with several redress possibilities

The Privacy Shield was signed off on 8 July 2016 by the European Commission
and the Department of Commerce of the United States. The new and approved version
of the Privacy Shield contains numerous clarifications for the privacy principles.
The Privacy Shield was open to companies from 1 August 2016, so by August
2017 the questions around how legitimate this Privacy Shield will be, should be
answered. All going well, it should be able to restore and start to rebuild trust with
the citizens around the use, protection, and stewardship of data [24].
The new and approved version of the Privacy Shield contains numerous
clarifications for the privacy principles.
The first relates to data integrity and purpose limitation, which clarifies the
purpose of data usage and that it is reliable for its intended use; meaning it must be
up to date and complete.
The choice principle allows the data subject to opt-out if their data will be dis-
closed to a third party or used for a different purpose, and clarifies the use for direct
marketing.
The principle on accountability for onwards transfers clarifies the obligation to
all parties involved, of the processing of data being transferred to ensure the same
level of protection despite the location of that party.
The access principle is probably the most important principle in the Privacy
Shield. It allows a data subject to query an organisation if they are processing any
personal data related to them, which the organisation needs to respond to, in a rea-
sonable time. Although, the problem here is what constitutes reasonable. This is a
subjective interpretation of the word so this may cause some problems in the future.
It also allows for the data subject to correct, amend, or delete personal data that is
inaccurate or has been processed in violation of the principles. This aligns with the
EU directives and regulations.
The principle on Recourse, Enforcement and Liability clarifies how complaints
are handled, and sets out eight levels of redress that must be handled in a specific
 Waikato Data Privacy Matrix 249

order, which would be used for EU citizens if their complaint is not resolved to their
satisfaction [25].
Since the Privacy Shield was built upon parts of the Safe Harbour Agreement,
companies still need to self-certify. It has the extra principle components, meaning
citizens from the EU are protected better than before, and there is more transparency
in this agreement.

11.2.7 General data protection regulation

Currently in the EU there are numerous directives in place which aim to protect
personal data. The EU Data Protection Directive [26], which is the main document
within the EU for data protection, regulates how data can be processed within the
EU. In addition there are two other directives which compliment the Data Protec-
tion Directive. The first of these is the 2009 E-Privacy Directive which replaced
the former 2002 E-Privacy directive [27], and the second one is the Data Retention
Directive [28].
The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR)1 is a new regulation from the
EU that will come into force from 25 May 2018, replacing the existing EU Data
Protection Directive. The GDPR will help to strengthen and unify data protection for
individuals who reside within the EU.
The GDPR will introduce or further define the following areas [29]:

● Increased Territorial Scope

● Tougher Sanctions
● Consent
● Breach Notification
● Right to Access
● Right to be Forgotten
● Data Portability
● Privacy by Design
● Data Protection Officers

Once in force, the GDPR will be legally binding on all member states of the
EU. This will also extend the scope to all organisations who may operate within
the EU or process data of EU citizens whether they are headquartered there or
not [30,31].
There has been much discussion around the effects the GDPR will have on the
data privacy landscape. The general consensus is that the GDPR will have a positive
effect. The new principles in the GDPR aim to give back the control to citizens over
their data. The GDPR will set the new standard for data privacy.

1
Regulation on the protection of natural persons with regard to the processing of personal data and on the
free movement of such data, and repealing Directive 95/46/EC.
250 Data security in cloud computing

11.3 Legal cases

Privacy concerns are an ongoing issue that may only get more complicated as the
technological landscape evolves. In recent years there have been some important
landmark legal cases which reaffirm the need for a project of the calibre of the
WDPM.

11.3.1 Schrems v. Data Protection Commissioner

The Schrems2 case is probably the biggest and most important privacy case in recent
history, resulting in the invalidation of the Safe Harbor Agreement.
Maximillian Schrems, an Austrian law student and privacy activist, was studying
abroad at Santa Clara University, completing his PhD, where he wrote a term paper
on Facebook’s lack of awareness of European privacy law [32]. During his research,
Mr Schrems sent a request to Facebook for their records on him and received a CD
with over 1,200 pages of data. This sparked the start of his journey down the road that
would eventually lead him to the CJEU.
Mr Schrems then filed 23 complaints, against Facebook, to the Irish Data Pro-
tection Commissioner. These complaints related to the level of protection which was
provided for data in the US. Most of Mr Schrems data for Facebook was transferred
from one of Facebook’s subsidiary companies in Ireland through to servers in the
US, where his data was then processed. This was permitted through the Safe Harbor
Agreement.
The complaints made by Mr Schrems further added concerns to the lack of
protection for data offered in the US previously highlighted by the release of the
documents in 2013 by Edward Snowden around the spying of the NSA [33].

11.3.2 Google Spain v. AEPD and Mario Costeja Gonzålez

This Google case3 was another important privacy case which resulted in the new EU
“Right to be Forgotten” ruling [34].
In 1998, a Spanish citizen – Mario Gonzålez – had two short articles published
about him by a Spanish newspaper – La Vanguardia. The newspaper reported Mr
Gonzålez’s home was to be auctioned to pay off his social security debts. Subsequently,
these two articles were published on the Internet. Twelve years later in 2010, Mr
Gonzålez made a complaint to the national data protection agency in Spain against
the newspaper, as well as Google Spain and Google Inc. He alleged that when any
Internet user typed his name into a Google search engine, they would see the two
articles published in 1998. Mr Gonzålez had since rectified these issues and moved
on with his life, making these articles now irrelevant; yet, the articles were still
available, which he argued were prejudicial to his present and future living.

2
Case C-362/14 Schrems v. Data Protection Commissioner [2015] ICLR.
3
Google Spain SL, Google Inc. v. Agencia Española de Protección de Datos (es), Mario Costeja Gonzålez
[2014] C-131/12.
 Waikato Data Privacy Matrix 251

Mr Gonzålez requested all personal information relating to him be either removed

from the newspaper or the pages in question amended [35]. He then requested Google
Spain and Google Inc. to remove or conceal his personal data, so it would not appear
in the search results nor in the links to the newspaper [36].
The Spanish Court referred this case to the CJEU where it ruled in favour of Mr
Gonzålez, and he won the right for Google Spain and Google Inc. to remove the links
from online circulation; however, the articles are still online but are harder to find
now with the links gone.

11.3.3 Apple v. FBI

To give some background on why this case is important to the data privacy debate –
in early December 2015 a husband and wife walked into the building of the Inland
Regional Centre in San Bernardino, California, to carry out a terrorist attack. They
shot and killed 14 people and seriously injured a further 22 people. The two attackers
were then shot by police [37]. The police seized the iPhone 5C of one of the shooters.
Once the FBI had the iPhone, they had ten attempts to guess the password before
the data on the phone would be erased. The FBI filed a motion to compel Apple to help
them access the contents of the phone by bypassing the security. The Judge ordered
Apple to provide “reasonable technical assistance”. For Apple to allow this type of
access, they would have to write a completely new version of their iPhone Operating
System (iOS). The new version would essentially allow a backdoor into the iPhone
by bypassing the security features built in to the current iOS, allowing the FBI to use
a brute force attack to crack the pass code to the phone [38].
Although Apple said it was possible for them to build the backdoor into their
system, they said it was too dangerous and once it was created anyone could use
it to gain access to an iPhone. Apple said they regularly receive requests from law
enforcement agencies asking for their help to unlock phones, but have not done this,
keeping their customers’ privacy their priority.
The FBI managed to unlock the phone, through the use of a third party, a week
before the trial was set to be heard. The FBI has never confirmed how they accessed
the phone or which third party helped them [39].
The publicity which came out of this case was enormous. In recent years, the US
Government has attempted to get Apple and other technology companies to build a
form of backdoor into their products, so law enforcement agencies have the ability
to bypass the security measures where a phone is involved in an investigation. Apple
changed their software in 2014 to ensure their phones could not be unlocked or
decrypted [40]. This was a reassuring step for Apple customers, showing that their
privacy, and privacy of their data, was important to the company.

“While we believe the FBI’s intentions are good, it would be wrong for the
government to force us to build a backdoor into our products. And ultimately,
we fear that this demand would undermine the very freedoms and liberty our
government is meant to protect.”
Tim Cook, Chief Executive Officer of Apple
252 Data security in cloud computing

11.3.4 The right to be forgotten concept

The “right to be forgotten” is a concept where an individual within the EU has the
ability to request search engines remove links to pages that detail certain information
about a person which may be inadequate, irrelevant or no longer relevant. This issue,
relating to a person’s right to privacy, which came out of the Google Spain case, not
only affects Google search engine but any search engine which holds a “presence” in
the EU, including both Yahoo and Bing [41].
Currently the “right to be forgotten” only applies to individuals (does not cover
companies), living within a member country of the European Union which includes
all nationalities residing within the EU. The “right to be forgotten” has been limited
by the CJEU. An individual may refer to any person, including celebrities or other
people who live in the public eye, although they would still come under the right to
be forgotten, this may not guarantee they can be forgotten. The CJEU has specified
that search engines must consider the public’s right to information as it is of more
importance when dealing with someone in the public eye. Although they may want
something removed, they may not be able to have that, due to their position in society.
There may be exceptions to this which could include scams that are the kind
of public interest items Google has said will be excluded from “right to be forgot-
ten”. Professional malpractice, criminal convictions, or public conduct of government
officials would also fall under this exception [42].
The Court has made it clear that journalistic work must not be touched; it is to
be protected [42].
For someone to be forgotten, a form is filled out and submitted to Google. If
successful, the link to the page would be removed but this only applies to search
engines within the EU. If Alice lives in Sweden and was to have something removed,
Bob would not be able to see it on Google.fr (France) and Google.ge (Germany), but
if it was to be looked up on Google.co.nz it would still be visible [41].
Although the form can help to get the correct information to Google, there are
some issues. If someone has two variations of their name, for instance “Matt Smith”
and “Matthew Smith”, the form will only allow for one of these to be removed. This
means two forms would need to be filled out [43].
In 2012, European UnionAgency for Network and Information Security (ENISA)
published a paper outlining the pros and cons of the new Bill that was being looked
at which would later become the “right to be forgotten”. It also laid out the technical
aspects of how it could be enforced [44].

11.4 Related work in legal alignment

11.4.1 DLA Piper

The DLA Piper Data Protection Laws of the World Handbook [45] was launched in
2012. The handbook allows a user to choose two of the 89 countries and compare data
privacy legislation. This website is helpful to a user to give them some idea of relevant
 Waikato Data Privacy Matrix 253

legislation in the countries specified; however, it will mostly give the main piece of
legislation relating to data privacy. The handbook then summarises the selected topic,
for example, if the user clicks on “Authority” it will give an overview of who the
authority is. In New Zealand’s case it just gives contact details for the Office of the
Privacy Commissioner.

11.4.2 Forrester Global Heat Map

The Forrester Global Heat Map [46] gives a user minimal access without registering
for the site. Once registered, a user can buy the report for US$499 [47]. Not all of the
countries are represented for free and the user does not get any usable information.
Of the seven countries that can be clicked on – Russia, Taiwan, China, Singapore,
Thailand, the UK and the US – only the UK and the US give information which is not
helpful to the user.

11.4.3 International Data Protection Legislation Matrix

The International Data Protection Legislation Matrix [48] was developed by the US
Department of Commerce and has not been updated since 2005. It is a table of 51
Areas which includes 50 countries and the EU (it does not include the US). It lists the
relevant legislation, and a hyperlink to that legislation. The document then tells the
user the status of the legislation and some key details about the legislation.

11.4.4 Baker & McKenzie’s Global Privacy Handbook

This handbook [49] is written and updated by Baker & McKenzie, a global law firm
with offices in 47 countries [50]. The user can utilise their tool to select and compare
a single country or multiple countries, out of the available 56 countries. The user can
then select a single topic or multiple topics to view and compare. The application will
then give the user a summary of the legislation. It does not mention which legislation
is used or is applicable in the country.

11.5 Proposed solution

A possible solution is the WDPM, which is a Rosetta Stone like matrix which helps
to align data privacy laws throughout Asia Pacific, the EU and the US. It does this
by having a set of seven predefined domains which include a control specification.
(The Rosetta Stone [51] was a stone uncovered in 1799 with writing inscribed on it in
two languages – Egyptian and Greek, these are done in three scripts – hieroglyphic,
demotic and Greek.) The first domain is “Legislative Framework” which includes
six “control specifications”. Next to each control specification it lists the name of
the documents relevant to that specification. The document name in the first domain
gives the user the full name of the document and a link they can click which will take
them to that document.
254 Data security in cloud computing

The WDPM directs a user to a specific section, article, schedule or part in the
applicable legislation. This reduces the user hunting through government or other
websites to find the relevant legislation they need and then directs them to the specific
part of that legislation where they can see what the law states. The WDPM allows a
user to see if there are any similar laws to do with that control within some of the
countries located in the Asia Pacific, the EU or the US.
One example of the WDPM is the control specification from the pre-collection
process domain. It directs the user to many different documents that relate to whether
consent is required from the individual involved in the collection. In New Zealand
there are three documents identified. The Privacy Act 1993 – which is the legis-
lation, section 6 which in the Act, is titled “Information Privacy Principles” and
then to principle 3. The use of the WDPM allows users to quickly and painlessly
find and identify the relevant information relating to consent. When a user looks at
the country in question they are also able see Australia, China and the UK which
helps the user to see immediately that there is some law around consent in these
countries.
The contributions from a variety of privacy experts have helped shape the WDPM,
as well as the advise of over 20 experts from academia and industry. This has helped
to provide some peer review of the information and directions within the WDPM.
The WDPM only focuses on general data privacy legislation at a federal level,
meaning only legislation which covered the country as a whole was looked at. Due to
the scope of the project only general data privacy was researched, this did not include
legislation relating to health and finance. There were only 12 countries included in
the WDPM as a start; the next step would be to add multiple other countries to create
a more global and comprehensive alignment tool. The delivery for the WDPM is also
an important step as the current form of the WDPM is a large Excel spreadsheet, but
a web application will need to be introduced to make the user experience even better.
To ensure the WDPM is a truly global tool, a wider range of countries will also
need to be added.

11.5.1 Data privacy matrix road map

The WDPM started off as a project which looked at aligning data privacy laws within
the Asia Pacific region. Out of the APAC countries there were five countries chosen –
New Zealand, Australia, China, Malaysia and Singapore, because these countries all
participate in providing major cloud services. It was a logical choice to look at the
alignment of these countries first. The next step is to align the UK and the US. For
the EU countries there have been six countries chosen – United Kingdom, Sweden,
France, Poland, Estonia and Germany. These countries have been chosen as they are
among the most influential EU countries [52]. Estonia has been chosen as it is a leader
in cybersecurity and e-government. It was decided at the beginning that WDPM would
be at a high level of legislation covering federal legislation. State and local laws have
been left out at this point, but may be introduced at a later time. It also does not look
at tortious or civil laws as these are not as black and white as the federal legislations.
 Waikato Data Privacy Matrix 255

11.6 Concluding remarks

Data privacy is an increasingly important topic being widely discussed. With the
advancement of Cloud services and technologies, and the upcoming implementation
of the GDPR, it does not seem like these discussions will slow down. The WDPM is
a tool to allow users to compare data privacy laws across the globe; so even though
the GDPR will be the one document within the EU, it will still need to align with the
rest of the non-EU countries to see how their data privacy legislation aligns.

11.6.1 Vision
To help to complete the future work and promote the WDPM and data privacy, the
Data Privacy Foundation Inc. has been setup. The foundation has the following vision:

(a)To assist in achieving global alignment of data privacy laws by identifying gaps
and shortfalls in country and regional laws and legal systems, thereby ensuring
full legal protection of data.
(b) To establish the premier, knowledge based, definitive global authority on data
privacy.
(c) To provide knowledge, tools, training, consultancy and events to assure data
privacy across the globe.
(d) To establish, build, and sustain data privacy knowledge databases by
harnessing collaborative, open source, scalable contributions and technologies.
(e) To facilitate delivery of data privacy at a level not achievable or limited by
any one organisation or country.

The foundation will help to create a comprehensive and robust global alignment
tool for all types of data privacy legislation. There is a lot of work to be done to include
these extra additions but this is a crucial development to create a truly global tool,
and the benefit of having the foundation will help to extend the reach of this research.
By having access to federal and state legislation combined with case law, users
and governments have a tool which gives them extensive information and direction
to data privacy legislation around the globe.

References
[1] Vic (J.R.) Winkler, “Cloud Computing: Privacy, confidentiality and the
cloud,” June 2013 (Last Accessed on 24 October 2016). [Online]. Available:
https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dn235775.aspx
[2] I. Georgieva, “The Right to Privacy under Fire – Foreign Surveillance under
the NSA and the GCHQ and Its Compatibility with Art. 17 ICCPR and Art.
256 Data security in cloud computing

8 ECHR,” Utrecht J. Int’l & Eur. L., vol. 31, p. 104, February 27, 2015
(Last Accessed on 24 October 2016). [Online]. Available: www.utrechtjournal.
org/articles/10.5334/ujiel.cr/
[3] N. Arce, “Effect of NSA Spying on US Tech Industry: $35 Billion? No.
Way More,” June 10, 2015 (Last Accessed on 22 July 2016). [Online].
Available: http://www.techtimes.com/articles/59316/20150610/effect-of-nsa-
spying-on-us-tech-industry-35-billion-no-way-more.htm
[4] K. L. Lueth, “Why the Internet of Things Is Called Internet of Things: Def-
inition, History, Disambiguation,” December 19, 2014 (Last Accessed on
24 October 2016). [Online]. Available: https://iot-analytics.com/internet-of-
things-definition/
[5] L. Columbus, “Roundup of Cloud Computing Forecasts And Market Esti-
mates, 2016,” March 13, 2016 (Last Accessed on 24 October 2016). [Online].
Available: http://www.forbes.com/sites/louiscolumbus/2016/03/13/roundup-
of-cloud-computing-forecasts-and-market-estimates-2016/#5557f3c574b0
[6] Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet (New Zealand), “National
Plan to Address Cybercrime,” December 10, 2015 (Last Accessed on
24 August 2016). [Online]. Available: http://www.dpmc.govt.nz/sites/all/
files/publications/nz-cyber-security-cybercrime-plan-december-2015.pdf
[7] Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet (Australia), “Aus-
tralia’s Cyber Security Strategy,” April 21, 2016 (Last Accessed on
24 August 2016). [Online]. Available: https://cybersecuritystrategy.dpmc.
gov.au/assets/img/PMC-Cyber-Strategy.pdf
[8] S. Nicholas, “Surviving and Thriving with Your New Business,” September
22, 2015 (Last Accessed on 24 August 2016). [Online]. Available: http://www.
stuff.co.nz / business / better-business/72295224/Surviving-and-thriving-with-
your-new-business
[9] “The History of Cloud Computing” (Last Accessed on 27 August 2016).
[Online]. Available: http://www.eci.com/cloudforum/cloud-computing-
history.html
[10] A. Mohamed, “A History of Cloud Computing” (Last Accessed on 27 August
2016). [Online]. Available: http://www.computerweekly.com/feature/A-
history-of-cloud-computing
[11] Business Cloud News, “AWS, Google, Microsoft and IBM Pull Away from
Pack in Race for Cloud Market Share,” April 29, 2016 (Last Accessed on
27 August 2016). [Online]. Available: http://www.businesscloudnews.com/
2016/04/29/aws-google-microsoft-and-ibm-pull-away-from-pack-in-race-for-
cloud-market-share/
[12] J. Tsidulko, “Keeping Up with the Cloud: Top 5 Market-Share Leaders,”
February 11, 2016 (Last Accessed on 27 August 2016). [Online]. Avail-
able: http: / /www.crn.com / slide-shows/cloud/300079669/keeping-up-with-
the-cloud-top-5-market-share-leaders.htm/pgno/0/6
[13] K. Weins, “Cloud Computing Trends: 2016 State of the Cloud Survey,”
February 9, 2016 (Last Accessed on 6 April 2016). [Online]. Available: http://
www.rightscale.com / blog / cloud-industry-insights / cloud-computing-trends-
2016-state-cloud-survey
 Waikato Data Privacy Matrix 257

[14] “Google Data Centres,” February 9, 2016, (Last Accessed on 7

April 2016). [Online]. Available: https://www.google.com/about/datacenters/
inside/locations/index.html
[15] M. B. Kelly, “The US Now Thinks Snowden ‘Probably Downloaded’ 1.5 Mil-
lion Documents That Haven’t Been Found,” June 6, 2014, (Last Accessed on 22
July 2016). [Online]. Available: http://www.businessinsider.com.au/clapper-
says-snowden-took-less-than-they-though-2014-6
[16] “Verizon – about us” (Last Accessed on 12 July 2016). [Online]. Available:
http://www.verizon.com/about/our-company/history-timeline
[17] “Court Order to Spy on Verizon Users Is a 3-Month Renewal of Ongoing Prac-
tice: Feinstein,” June 6, 2013 (Last Accessed on 22 July 2016). [Online]. Avail-
able: http://nypost.com/2013/06/06/court-order-to-spy-on-verizon-users-is-a-
3-month-renewal-of-ongoing-practice-feinstein/
[18] P. Szoldra, “SNOWDEN: Here’s Everything We’ve Learned In One Year
of Unprecedented Top-Secret Leaks,” June 7, 2014 (Last Accessed on 22
July 2016). [Online]. Available: http://www.businessinsider.com.au/snowden-
leaks-timeline-2014-6?r=US&IR=T
[19] J. Schellhase, “After Two Years of Edward Snowden Revelations, What
Have We Learned About NSA Spying?” May 6, 2015 (Last Accessed on
22 July 2016). [Online]. Available: http://all-that-is-interesting.com/snowden-
revelations/3
[20] T. Sottek and J. Kopstein, “Everything You Need to Know About PRISM,”
July 17, 2013 (Last Accessed on 3 April 2016). [Online]. Available: http://
www.theverge.com/2013/7/17/4517480/nsa-spying-prism-surveillance-cheat-
sheet
[21] “Questions and Answers on the EU–US Data Protection Umbrella Agreement,”
September 8, 2015 (Last Accessed on 3 April 2016). [Online]. Available:
http://europa.eu/rapid/press-release_MEMO-15-5612_en.htm
[22] G. Maldoff, “We Read Privacy Shield So You Don’t Have To,” March 7,
2016 (Last Accessed on 4 April 2016). [Online]. Available: https://iapp.org/
news/a/we-read-privacy-shield-so-you-dont-have-to
[23] EU Commission, “EU Commission and United States Agree on New Frame-
work for Transatlantic Data Flows: EU–US Privacy Shield,” February 2, 2016
(Last Accessed on 24 August 2016). [Online]. Available: http://europa.eu/
rapid/press-release_IP-16-216_en.htm
[24] S. Colclasure, “The EU Privacy Shield One Week In: A Privacy Exec’s
Perspective,” August 10, 2016 (Last Accessed on 24 August 2016). [Online].
Available: http://venturebeat.com/2016/08/10/the-eu-privacy-shield-one-
week-in-a-privacy-execs-perspective/
[25] F. Gilbert and M.-J. Van Der Heijden, EU–U.S. Privacy Shield 2.0 Signed,
Sealed and Delivered. Bloomberg BNA – Privacy and Security Law Report,
July 7, 2016, iSSN 1538-3423 (Last Accessed on 24 August 2016). [Online].
Available: https://www.bna.com/euus-privacy-shield-n57982076797/
[26] “EU Data Protection Directive,” 1995 (Last Accessed on 6 April
2016). [Online]. Available: http://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/
PDF/?uri=CELEX:31995L0046&from=en
258 Data security in cloud computing

[27] Council of European Union, “Directive 2009/136/EC,” 2009 (Last Accessed

on 3 August 2016). [Online]. Available: http://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-
content/EN/TXT/HTML/?uri=CELEX:32009L0136&from=EN
[28] Council of European Union, “Directive 2006/24/EC,” 2006 (Last
Accessed on 3 August 2016). [Online]. Available: http://eur-lex.europa.eu/
LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?uri=OJ:L:2006:105:0054:0063:EN:PDF
[29] EUGDPR.org, “GDPR Key Changes,” (Last Accessed on 13 December 2016).
[Online]. Available: http://www.eugdpr.org/key-changes.html
[30] A. Macrae, “GDPR – The Good, the Bad and the Ugly,” February 23,
2016 (Last Accessed on 12 January 2017). [Online]. Available: https://
www.tripwire.com / state-of-security / security-awareness / gdpr-the-good-the-
bad-and-the-ugly/
[31] A. Olshanskaya, “Why the GDPR Is Good for Business,” December
15, 2016 (Last Accessed on 12 January 2017). [Online]. Available:
https://iapp.org/news/a/why-the-gdpr-is-good-for-businesses/
[32] S. M. Lisa Mays, “The Schrems Decision: How the End of Safe Harbor
Affects Your FCPA Compliance Plan,” November 12, 2015 (Last Accessed on
27 August 2016). [Online]. Available: http://www.globaltradelawblog.com/
2015 / 11 / 12 / the-schrems-decision-how-the-end-of-safe-harbor-affects-your-
fcpa-compliance-plan/
[33] “The Court of Justice Declares that the Commission’s US Safe Harbour Deci-
sion Is Invalid,” October 6, 2015 (Last Accessed on 4 April 2016). [Online].
Available: http://curia.europa.eu/jcms/upload/docs/application/pdf/2015-
10/cp150117en.pdf
[34] “Google Spain v. AEPD and Mario Costeja Gonzålez (C-131/12),” 2014
(Last Accessed on 6 April 2016). [Online]. Available: http://curia.europa.eu/
juris/document/document_print.jsf?doclang=EN&docid=152065
[35] “Factsheet on the ‘Right to Be Forgotten’ Ruling” (Last Accessed
on 7 April 2016). [Online]. Available: http://ec.europa.eu/justice/
data-protection/files/factsheets/factsheet_data_protection_en.pdf
[36] L. Laudati, “Summaries of EU Court Decisions Relating to Data Protec-
tion 2000–2015,” January 28, 2016 (Last Accessed on 27 August 2016).
[Online]. Available: https://ec.europa.eu/anti-fraud/sites/antifraud/files/
caselaw_2001_2015_en.pdf
[37] E. Ortiz, “San Bernardino Shooting: Timeline of How the Rampage
Unfolded,” December 3, 2015 (Last Accessed on 27 August 2016). [Online].
Available: http://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/san-bernardino-shooting/san-
bernardino-shooting-timeline-how-rampage-unfolded-n473501
[38] T. Cook, “Answers to Your Questions about Apple and Security,” Febru-
ary 16, 2016 (Last Accessed on 29 August 2016). [Online]. Available:
https://www.apple.com/customer-letter/answers/
[39] A. Kharpal, “Apple vs FBI: All You Need to Know,” March 29, 2016 (Last
Accessed on 29 August 2016). [Online]. Available: http://www.cnbc.com/
2016/03/29/apple-vs-fbi-all-you-need-to-know.html
 Waikato Data Privacy Matrix 259

[40] K. Zetter, “Apple’s FBI Battle Is Complicated. Here’s What’s Really Going
On,” February 18, 2016 (Last Accessed on 29 August 2016). [Online].
Available: https://www.wired.com/2016/02/apples-fbi-battle-is-complicated-
heres-whats-really-going-on/
[41] D. Sulivan, “How Google’s New Right to Be Forgotten Form Works: An
Explainer,” May 30, 2014 (LastAccessed on 28 July 2016). [Online]. Available:
http://searchengineland.com/google-right-to-be-forgotten-form-192837
[42] L. Clark, “Google’s ‘Right to Be Forgotten’ Response Is ‘disappointingly
clever’,” May 30, 2014 (Last Accessed on 28 July 2016). [Online]. Available:
http://www.wired.co.uk/article/google-right-to-be-forgotten-form
[43] D. Sulivan, “Google to Remove Right-To-Be-Forgotten Links Worldwide,
For Searchers in European Countries,” February 10, 2016 (Last Accessed
on 28 July 2016). [Online]. Available: http://searchengineland.com/google-
to-remove-all-right-to-be-forgotten-links-from-european-index-242235
[44] “The Right to Be Forgotten – Between Expectations and Practice,” Novem-
ber 20, 2012 (Last Accessed on 28 July 2016). [Online]. Available:
https://www.enisa.europa.eu/publications/the-right-to-be-forgotten
[45] “Data Protection Laws of the World” (Last Accessed on 30 August
2016). [Online]. Available: https://www.dlapiperdataprotection.com
#handbook/world-map-section
[46] “Global Heat Map” (Last Accessed on 30 August 2016). [Online]. Available:
http://heatmap.forrestertools.com/
[47] H. Shey, E. Iannopollo, M. Barnes, S. Balaouras, A. Ma, and B. Nagel,
“Privacy, Data Protection, and Cross-Border Data Transfer Trends in Asia
Pacific,” March 4, 2005 (Last Accessed on 30 August 2016). [Online]. Avail-
able: https://www.forrester.com/report/Privacy+Data+Protection+And+
CrossBorder+Data+Transfer+Trends+In + Asia + Pacific/-/E-RES131051#
figure2
[48] J. Rohlmeier, “International Data Protection Legislation Matrix” (Last
Accessed on 30 August 2016). [Online]. Available: http://web.ita.doc.gov/ITI/
itiHome.nsf/51a29d31d11b7ebd85256cc600599b80/4947d6deb021a9648525
6d48006403af?OpenDocument
[49] Baker & McKenzie, “Global Privacy Handbook,” 2016 (Last Accessed
on 30 August 2016). [Online]. Available: http://globalprivacymatrix.
bakermckenzie.com/
[50] Baker & McKenzie, “Firm Facts,” 2016 (Last Accessed on 30 August 2016).
[Online]. Available: http://www.bakermckenzie.com/-/media/files/about-
us/firm-facts-final.pdf?la=en
[51] M. Cartwright, “Rosetta Stone,” January 3, 2014 (Last Accessed on 16
December 2016). [Online]. Available: http://www.ancient.eu/Rosetta_Stone/
[52] “EU Countries Ranked for ‘influence potential’,” July 29, 2009 (Last
Accessed on 28 April 2016). [Online]. Available: http://www.euractiv.com/
section/future-eu/news/eu-countries-ranked-for-influence-potential/
This page intentionally left blank
 Chapter 12
Data provenance in cloud
Alan Yu Shyang Tan1 , Sivadon Chaisiri1 , Ryan Ko Kok
Leong1 , Geoff Holmes1 , and Bill Rogers1

Abstract
One of the barriers of cloud adoption is the security of data stored in the cloud.
In this chapter, we introduce data provenance and briefly show how it is applicable
for data security in the cloud. Building on this, we discuss the underlying question
of how data provenance, required for empowering data security in the cloud, can
be acquired. The strengths and weaknesses of two methodologies for provenance
acquisition, active collection and reconstruction, are discussed. The goal is to provide
an understanding on the current state-of-the-art for generating provenance, such that
better methodologies and solutions can be developed.

12.1 Data provenance and its application

12.1.1 What is data provenance?

Data provenance is defined as the information that depicts the derivation history of
a piece of data [1]. Ideally, it shows how the data reaches its current state, since its
creation [2]. Data provenance is often conceptualised as a graph that captures the
entities involved in the derivation process and the relationships between those entities
[3–5].
Because of its relational properties and the information it captures, data prove-
nance is often used for tracking data transformations that happened in the past or
tracing the source of the data. For example, quality and trustworthiness of a data
is assessed by analysing its creation process, how the data is being published and
accessed and the parties that signed the data using the data provenance [6]. In [7],
the authors discussed several use cases in which provenance can be used to audit,
reproduce and verify experimental workflows. Miles et al. discussed how provenance
can be used to troubleshoot experimental workflows, such that the source of errors in
data can be found and fixed [8].

1
Cyber Security Lab, University of Waikato, New Zealand
262 Data security in cloud computing

From these examples, one can observe data provenance is useful for addressing
issues questions the why, how and where [9] of data. Addressing these questions
becomes more relevant when it comes to data in the cloud. Kaufman highlighted cloud
users not knowing where their data is stored as a main concern in his discussion on data
security in the cloud [10]. The abstraction offered in cloud services further complicate
matters when it comes to enforcing legal requirements surrounding data management,
such as the compliance checking and auditing. Because of these concerns, there is an
incentive to apply data provenance to cloud. In addition, the use of data provenance is
not limited to just data auditing and verification. It can also be used for data security.

12.1.2 Applying data provenance to data security

Instead of determining the security aspects (e.g. confidentiality, authenticity and
integrity) of data by looking at opinions and viewpoints of its sources, Moitra et al.
focused on how the data was communicated. Using subjective logic, each piece of
data is assigned three information assurance values, belief, disbelief and uncertainty.
Weaknesses and strengths of how the data has been managed are then uncovered by
analysing the data provenance. The information assurance values of the data are then
assigned according to the evidences discovered. For example, if a piece of data is
found to have been signed using Message Digest 5 (MD5), the data will be given a
low belief and high uncertainty rating. This is so as MD5 has been demonstrated to
be vulnerable [11]. Through the information assurance values, a user of the data can
decide whether the data is trustworthy. Park et al. discussed how the Open Provenance
Model (OPM) [12] is used to model the sharing and modification of data in a group
collaboration environment [13]. Using the modelled provenance, users can analyse
and verify if the data has been modified or handled in an untrusted manner or by
untrusted groups.
In [14,15], data provenance as a form of security control is discussed. Data
provenance that captures the transformation and access of the data is attached to it.
In doing so, different versions of the data (e.g. copying and pasting of data) can be
audited and its integrity checked. These checks may be executed as part of a company’s
data security policies that govern the management and use of data.
Using data provenance collected from systems, References [16–18] discuss how
it is used to detect and trace data leakages and how data leaked can be identified. The
discussed approaches focused on identifying and analysing applications that have
interacted with the data, so as to discover the source and point of the leakage. For
example, Yu et al. [17] generates profiles of sensitive data leakage path through
the analysis of the provenance graph. Generated profiles are then used to detect
applications that are responsible for the leakage. Jiang et al. [16] used colour tainting
techniques to taint system call traces of processes that interacted with critical data.
Once detected, origins of the data leakage (e.g. infiltration point) and applications
responsible are uncovered by back-tracing the diffusion of colour taints.
The literature discussed thus far is only a sample of the research looking at how
data provenance can be used for the assurance and security of data. However, they
offer a glimpse of what data provenance can offer to the cloud. Having said that, these
research focus on the usage of data provenance. Few have discussed how the data
 Data provenance in cloud 263

Application Layer Tracking provenance

VM vertically monitors how
VM data is communicated
VM among components
Virtual Layer between layers

servers storage

Physical Layer

Provenance captured horizontally shows how

data is communicated between components
within the same layer

Figure 12.1 Tracking of data provenance in the cloud infrastructure

provenance, on which their proposed solution relies on, is obtained. In this rest of this
chapter, we discuss how data provenance can be acquired in the cloud.

12.2 Data provenance in cloud

12.2.1 Scope of the discussion

Unlike traditional computer systems, the cloud infrastructure consists of multiple
layers such as the application, physical and virtual layer [19,20]. Each layer may
handle the same piece of data in a different manner and independent of other layers.
For example, in the physical layer, a file may be stored as multiple blocks but in the
virtual layer, the file may be stored as a virtual object. Data may also be passed between
layers as users interact with the data. As a result, provenance needs to be tracked
vertically as data is passed between layers. Likewise, provenance needs to be tracked
horizontally as it is being managed by different components within the same layer. The
two types of tracking required in cloud are illustrated in Figure 12.1. The challenges
of tracking provenance across layers have been well discussed in literature such as
[20–22] and as such, will not be discussed here. Instead, the discussion in this chapter
focuses on techniques and solutions for acquiring data provenance within a layer.

12.2.2 Log files is not provenance

In the context of computer systems (e.g. cloud and servers), one of the common mis-
conception of provenance is its equivalence to a log file. We use a mail delivery system,
illustrated in Figure 12.2, as an example to explain the differences between the two.
Most mail delivery system used in modern world consists of a network of depots
for collecting and sorting of mail items due for delivery. At each depot, items received
are catalogued and sorted based on their destination addresses. The details of the items
264 Data security in cloud computing

Information stored at Depots

Mail items time-in time-out ... Information stored at depots
m1 12pm 5pm equivalent to log files in systems
m2
.. .... ...
.

Regional Regional
Depot Depot
Sender Local (R1) (R2) Local Receiver
(S) Depot mail (m1) Depot (R)
(L1) (L2)
Provenance of mail

S delivered by L1 delivered by R1

received by
Postman1 received by Truck

Figure 12.2 Illustration of the mail delivery system example

received, time it was received at the depot, time it was sent out of the depot and other
information are tracked at the depot. However, each depot does not track where
or which other depots the item had passed through prior to it reaching the depot.
Similarly, log files are considered to be the result of logging mechanisms deployed
at specific points within a computer system. Most of these mechanisms only capture
events observed within their assigned scope and perspective. For example, a logger
for an application only captures events happening in relation to the application and
within the application’s execution space (e.g. memory region or execution stack).
Thus relationships between objects and processes outside the scope of the application
(e.g. across other log files) are unknown.
On the other hand, provenance of a data describes how the data is managed
and accessed by different applications and entities in a system. As such, it contains
information that intersects with different log files. Referencing the mail example,
provenance of the mail shows the origin of the mail, the depots that have processed
the mail and other information that describes how the mail eventually reaches the
current depot. This provenance can be retrieved from a centralised system, that stores
information from all depots, using the bar code or ID assigned to each mail item.
Because of its relational properties, provenance is commonly visualised as a
graph, as shown in the example illustrated in Figure 12.2. On the other hand, visu-
alising events in a log file (e.g. an application log) will result in a graph that shows
the states and objects the application interacted with directly connected to the node
representing the application. The resulting graph is similar to a ‘one-step’ provenance
graph, as illustrated in Figure 12.3.
 Data provenance in cloud 265

File1

Event1

File2
Application
Event2

File3

Figure 12.3 Example of a graph that visualises a log file

Hence, to capture information that allow the relational aspects and the entities of
the provenance graph to be modelled, customised tools and techniques are required.

12.3 Acquiring data provenance from cloud

Approaches for acquiring data provenance from within a layer can be generalised into
two categories – active collection and reconstruction.

12.3.1 Active provenance collection

Active provenance collection generally refers to pro-actively capture provenance
during system runtime. In their discussion on the different types of provenance
collectors,1 Allen et al. [23] list the following methods of collection:
1. Operating system observation
2. Application reporting
3. Multiple system coordination points observation

12.3.1.1 Operating system observation

Provenance collectors that observe the operating system (OS) monitor key system
components such as the kernel for events that can be used for inferring relationships
between entities. For example, solutions such as PASS [24], SPADE [25], Komadu
[26] and Progger [27], instrument the system kernel for capturing system calls per-
taining to file and data communication executed by processes. Using a provenance
model, such as OPM [12] or PROV [28,29], the captured events are modelled into
provenance relations that describe the interactions between the processes, files and
other observed entities.
The main advantage of capturing provenance through observing the OS is the
breath of events that can be collected. System components such as the kernel and
file system are jointly used by all applications running on the system. Hence, by

1
We adopt the term provenance collectors for solutions that actively collects provenance from systems.
266 Data security in cloud computing

Process2
write(t2)
Cannot determine
read(t1) which write edge
write(t3)
File Process1 File2 propagated the data

write(t4)
Process3 Other entity nodes
may further branch
out the provenance
graph

Figure 12.4 Inability to accurately determine causally dependent relations leads to

an explosion of nodes and edges in the provenance graph

monitoring the system through these components, the proposed solutions are able to
observe the activities of each application.
However, because these components operate at the fine-grained layer of the
system. Events observed are detailed, high volume and semantically mismatched to
user activities observed in the more coarse-grained layers of the system (e.g. user
layer) [30]. For example, an event that shows an application reading data from a file
can be translated to a series of read system calls in the kernel. Just by looking at the
system calls, it is difficult to deduce whether the series of read calls are generated
from a single or multiple read events in the application layer. Another major downside
with capturing provenance through observing the OS is the dependency explosion
problem [31].
Given two events, A and B, B is said to be causally dependent on A (A → B), if,
A happens before B and B is generally dependent on A [32]. An example of a pair of
causally dependent system call is when an application read data from a file and write
the data to other objects. If the write happens after the read, the write is considered to
be causally dependent on the read. This is so as the application needs to first obtain
the data before it can output the data.
Due to a lack of semantics, relating to the data or the activity, being captured, it is
difficult to discern whether a pair of causally dependent input–output system call is
related. A single read from an entity may be connected to a group of writes executed by
the same entity after the read. In such situations, it is difficult to accurately determine
which other entities did the data being read propagated to. As a result, all causally
dependent edges and their sub-graphs will have to be included into the provenance.
To complicate matters, the other entities may further branch out the graph, causing an
explosion of nodes and edges in the provenance graph. This end result is an explosion
of dependencies, as illustrated in Figure 12.4.
12.3.1.2 Application reporting
Another alternative to collecting provenance in systems is to modify applications
managing the data to output provenance information whenever the relevant functions
 Data provenance in cloud 267

are executed. Although considered intrusive, it is less so compared to collectors that

observes the OS as the modifications are confined to applications being monitored.
The advantages of solutions that instrument applications are its flexibility in how
reporting can be done and the ability to capture a certain level of semantics. Because
these solutions entail modifying the application source code, the programmer can
decide how the reporting is to be done. Take for example a while loop function that
reads all data from a file. The programmer instrumenting the application can choose
to output a provenance relation to denote the application successfully reading the file
by placing the reporting code outside of the loop at the end. Likewise, the programmer
can also choose to output the number of reads executed by placing the reporting code
within the loop. Similarly, because of access to the source code, the programmer can
have knowledge of the behaviour of the application. Such knowledge can influence
how and where the reporting codes are placed. As a result, analysts will be able to
better relate the provenance generated to the activities of the applications or users.
The main limitation of instrumenting applications is that the generated prove-
nance is constrained to the scope of the applications being modified. As explained
in Section 12.2.2, data provenance can span across multiple applications. However,
because the reporting codes are instrumented into the source code, only activities hap-
pening within the execution scope of the application can be reported. In the situation
where the data is managed by applications not instrumented, gaps where no infor-
mation is acquired will result in the generated provenance graph. Recognising this
limitation proposed solutions, such as PASOA [8], Burrito [33] and E-notebook [34],
target middlewares (e.g. workflow engines) used by a group of applications whose
provenance is to be collected. This limitation also implies that users are constrained
to the set of instrumented applications if provenance is to be generated.

12.3.1.3 Multiple system coordination points observation

The third method for actively collecting provenance off systems is by monitoring
coordination points between different systems and applications. Examples of coordi-
nation points are external network interfaces, proxy servers and application messaging
services. By monitoring requests made and the data passing through these coordina-
tion points, provenance collectors are able to capture and model activities happening
between different entities (i.e. system and applications). The modification of the
Enterprise Service Bus (ESB) [35] by Allen et al. [30,36] is an example of prove-
nance collectors that monitor multiple system coordination points. Such a system is
ideal for a cloud environment as it is fundamentally composed of a set of services
coordinated by a set of key applications (e.g. cloud controller and hypervisor).
Because the modification is done at the coordination software (e.g. ESB, mes-
sage queue services), the number of applications that needs modification is reduced.
Users are also not constrained to a set of end user applications. Some coordination
software even provides libraries and application programming interface (API) for log-
ging and monitoring purposes. Due to these reasons, monitoring coordination points
is considered less intrusive as compared to the other two methods discussed thus far.
Having said that, because the monitoring is done outside the scope of applications
268 Data security in cloud computing

Table 12.1 Comparing methods used for active provenance collection

Degree of Scope of Granularity Semantics

intrusiveness provenance of activity

OS observation High System wide Fine-grained ✗

Application reporting Moderate Application specific Coarse-grained ✓
Coordination point Low Point specific Coarse-grained ✓
observation

that managed the data, provenance that shows how the data is being transformed by
those applications is unknown.

12.3.1.4 Overhead costs

Table 12.1 compares the discussed methods for actively collecting provenance from
systems.
A point to note is that these methods are not mutually exclusive. Depending on the
provenance required, one or more different types of provenance collectors can be used.
However, the overhead cost that comes with actively monitoring the system should
also be considered when deploying such solutions. Carata et al. [3] highlighted storage
and computation as the two main overhead induced by active provenance collectors.
Monitoring places extra load on the system as cycles are required to capture and
output information. Depending on the volume and velocity of events, computational
overhead may vary between 1% and 23% [24,37]. Similarly, storing the information
on disk incurs disk storage overhead that increases with time. Another common dis-
advantage of actively collecting provenance is the requirement for modifications and
the introduction of new monitoring software. Because most systems are by default
non-provenance-aware, introducing new software or modifying existing applications
are shunned due to concerns for security and stability of the system. Since cloud
systems are fundamentally composed of a set of services working in tandem, it is
important that the inter-operability, stability and security between services be tested
when deploying active provenance collectors.

12.3.2 Reconstructing provenance

Due to its intrusive nature and potential overhead costs on the system, actively collect-
ing provenance from the underlying system is not always practical. Recent research in
provenance has turned to reconstruction as an alternative approach to acquiring prove-
nance. The fundamental concept is to reconstruct data provenance using information
found on the system. The following discussion focuses on research looking at recon-
structing the entire provenance graph. While there are other related research looking
at how an incomplete provenance can be reconstructed, they are not discussed here
due to the assumption that some form of provenance is available. Such an assumption
deviates from our discussion on how provenance can be acquired.
 Data provenance in cloud 269

Assuming a scenario where the provenance for a set of critical files (e.g. medical
records) or data is lost, an intuitive approach is to infer the relationship between files,
thereby reconstructing the data provenance, by comparing the content between files.
Magliacane et al. [38,39], Deolalikar and Laffitte [40] andAierken et al. [41] proposed
using similarity measures such as cosine similarity and longest common subsequence
to compare and determine if two files are related. Files found to be related are then
grouped and ordered based on timestamps, such as date of creation, found in their
metadata. The ordered group of files then forms the coarse-grained provenance for
the oldest file, showing the order of revisions for that file. The underlying assumption
is that different revisions of a file would bear similarities in content between different
revisions. However, there are two weaknesses in the proposed solutions. First, the
reconstructed provenance only shows the possible order of transformation sequence,
from the original file till the latest revision. The output does not capture details on how
and what were the changes between revisions. Second, the approaches do not consider
the case where the content of two revisions of the same file can be drastically different.
Nies et al. [42] recognised these two weaknesses and proposed a solution that
compares two pieces of data (e.g. news articles, files) based on their semantic prop-
erties. Information such as named entities and descriptive metadata annotations that
are embedded in the file are extracted as semantic properties of the data. The authors
argued comparing two pieces of data at the semantic level allow the relationship
between the data to be established even if the contents differed in length or words
used. Details of changes made between two directly dependent revisions are then
inferred by identifying the differences in content. These differences are then mod-
elled into fine-grained provenance relations using concepts defined in the PROV-DM
model [43].
Although these solutions show data provenance can potentially be reconstructed
by comparing the similarity between two pieces of data, the approach is not scalable
as the number of data pieces (e.g. virtual objects) or files increases. In public cloud
storage services, such as Dropbox, it is common to find more than millions of file
objects belonging to different users stored in the underlying infrastructure. As such,
scalability of the approach is a factor that cannot be overlooked when considering
alternative approaches for acquiring provenance from a cloud environment.
Groth et al. [44] explored the idea of formulating data provenance reconstruction
as an Artificial Intelligence (AI) planning problem. The authors assumed the set of
transformations that can take place between two pieces of data, the initial and final
state of a piece of data are known. A prototype, based on A* search [45], that searches
for all possible sequence of transformations that can explain how the data reaches its
final state is built. However, the authors highlight the search space being unbounded
and the possibility of the algorithm returning incomplete results as challenges that
needs to be addressed before the approach is viable.
Deviating from the use of information surrounding the data, Huq et al. [46]
analysed the source code of a given application.2 Based on the grammar used in the

2
In the cited paper, the authors analysed Python scripts. Hence, the term ‘script’ is used in place of source
code.
270 Data security in cloud computing

analysed code, an abstract syntax tree is generated. The proposed graph building
engine then parses through the syntax tree, generating a new object for every node in
the tree. Users are prompted for details, such as whether the node is reading or writing
data, for each object generated. The end result is a provenance graph that describes
the workflow of the application and shows how data is being transformed within the
application’s execution space. Unfortunately, such a provenance graph does not show
how data is being communicated or transformed outside of the application’s execution
space.
The type of reconstruction algorithm that can be applied to cloud heavily relies
on the type of information obtainable from the environment (e.g. algorithm that works
on the physical layer may not work for virtual layer). Current proposed approaches
face issues such as unbounded search space for the possible sequence of transfor-
mation and ability to reconstruct fine-grained provenance. These issues will need
to be resolved before provenance reconstruction can become a viable alternative for
acquiring provenance in the cloud.

12.4 Conclusion and future challenges

On-going research on the applications of provenance have provided insights into its
potential for enabling data security. However, little is mentioned on how the required
provenance can be acquired in those work. In this chapter, we looked at two method-
ologies that can be used for acquiring data provenance in cloud systems – active
provenance collection and reconstructing provenance.
Solutions that actively collect provenance monitor the underlying system or appli-
cations for events that are relevant to data provenance in real-time. Through the
observed events, provenance relations that describe the interaction and relationship
between data and other entities are modelled. Since the events are observed in real
time, the resulting provenance relations are viewed with high confidence (e.g. users
are assured that the relationship does exists and is valid). Having said that, the draw-
backs of active provenance collection, such as the overhead cost and the need to
modify the underlying system, are grounds for new and better methodologies for
acquiring provenance. Acquiring provenance through reconstructing it from infor-
mation found on the system is an on-going endeavour for alternative methodologies.
Information that is leveraged on for the reconstruction can range from source code of
applications running on the system to the data itself. Although reconstructing prove-
nance does not have the associated overhead incurred from actively monitoring the
system, provenance produced is by means of inference. This associates a certain level
of uncertainty to the reconstructed provenance. In addition, there are still issues, such
as the ability to reconstruct fine-grained provenance and the large search space for
possible sequence of transformation, that needs to be resolved before reconstruction
can be a viable solution for provenance acquisition.
The two discussed methodologies for acquiring provenance focused on how
provenance can be collected from the underlying system. However, the following
 Data provenance in cloud 271

would need to be addressed before a complete and fool-proof solution can be

arrived at.

● Data provenance outside of cloud – Regardless of whether it is actively collected

or reconstructed, the discussed solutions focused on provenance that shows how
data is transformed within the system. However, in practice, data is frequently
communicated between different systems (e.g. the Internet). A ‘blind spot’ will
result in the provenance if the data is moved off the system, modified and replaced
with the modified version. New solutions will need to be developed for tracking
provenance of data outside of the system. An example is the concept of encap-
sulating the data within a self-executing container before the data is allowed to
leave the cloud, discussed by Tan et al. [47]. The container provides the platform
on which changes made to the data can be logged and reported back to the main
system. However, the issues such as integrity and security of the information
collected still need to be addressed.
● Correctness of provenance – A piece of information is only as good as its
source. An approach for verifying information collected using the monitoring
mechanisms used for active provenance collection and information used for recon-
struction is required. For example, Hasan et al. [48] discussed how encryption
and chain-hashing can be used to provide provenance with tamper-evident capa-
bilities. However, the correctness and integrity of the information produced by the
source (e.g. monitoring mechanism) is not discussed. If an attacker tampers with
the mechanism, such that incorrect information is generated, the errors induced
will propagate to the resulting provenance. This applies for information sources
used for provenance reconstruction. Hence, it is important that the source and the
information can be verified.

References
[1] Y. L. Simmhan, B. Plale, and D. Gannon, “A Survey of Data Provenance in
e-Science,” ACM SIGMOD Record, vol. 34, no. 3, pp. 31–36, 2005. [Online].
Available: http://doi.acm.org/10.1145/1084805.1084812
[2] Y. S. Tan, R. K. L. Ko, and G. Holmes, “Security and Data Accountabil-
ity in Distributed Systems: A Provenance Survey,” in Proceedings of the
15th IEEE International Conference on High Performance Computing and
Communications (HPCC’13), 2013.
[3] L. Carata, S. Akoush, N. Balakrishnan, et al., “A Primer on Provenance,”
Communications of the ACM, vol. 57, no. 5, pp. 52–60, May 2014.
[4] S. M. S. D. Cruz, M. L. M. Campos, and M. Mattoso, “Towards a Taxonomy of
Provenance in Scientific Workflow Management Systems,” in IEEE Congress
on Services, 2009, pp. 259–266.
[5] L. Moreau, “The Foundation for Provenance on the Web,” Foundations and
Trends in Web Science, Journal, vol. 2, pp. 99–241, 2010.
272 Data security in cloud computing

[6] O. Hartig, “Provenance Information in the Web of Data,” in Proceedings of

the World Wide Web 2009 Workshop on Linked Data on the Web (LDOW’09),
April 2009.
[7] S. Miles, P. Groth, M. Branco, and L. Moreau, “The Requirements of Using
Provenance in e-Science Experiments,” Journal of Grid Computing, vol. 5, pp.
1–25, 2007.
[8] S. Miles, E. Deelman, P. Groth, K.Vahi, G. Mehta, and L. Moreau, “Connecting
Scientific Data to Scientific Experiments with Provenance,” in Proceedings of
the Third IEEE International Conference on e-Science and Grid Computing
(e-Science’07), 10–13 December 2007, pp. 179–186, Bangalore, India.
[9] J. Cheney, L. Chiticariu, and W.-C. Tan, “Provenance in Databases: Why, How
and Where,” Foundations and Trends in Databases, Journal, vol. 1, no. 4, pp.
379–474, 2007.
[10] L. M. Kaufman, “Data Security in the World of Cloud Computing,” IEEE
Security and Privacy, vol. 7, no. 4, pp. 61–64, Jul. 2009. [Online]. Available:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1109/MSP.2009.87
[11] A. Sotirov, M. Stevens, J. Appelbaum, et al., “MD5 Considered
Harmful Today,” http://www.win.tue.nl/hashclash/rogue-ca/ (Last accessed:
08/03/2017), Dec. 2008.
[12] L. Moreau, B. Clifford, J. Freire, et al., “The Open Provenance Model Core
Specification (v1.1),” Future Generation Computer Systems, vol. 27, no. 6, pp.
743–756, Jun. 2011. [Online]. Available: http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/271449/
[13] J. Park, D. Nguyen, and R. Sandhu, “On Data Provenance in Group-Centric
Secure Collaboration,” in Collaborative Computing: Networking, Applications
and Worksharing (CollaborateCom), 2011 Seventh International Conference
on. IEEE, 15–18 October 2011, pp. 221–230, Orlando, Florida, USA.
[14] B. Corcoran, N. Swamy, and M. Hicks, “Combining Provenance and Security
Policies in a Web-based Document Management System,” in On-Line Pro-
ceedings of the Workshop on Principles of Provenance (PrOPr), Nov. 2007,
http://homepages.inf.ed.ac.uk/jcheney/propr/
[15] A. Martin, J. Lyle, and C. Namilkuo, “Provenance as a Security Con-
trol,” in Proceedings of the Fourth USENIX Workshop on the The-
ory and Practice of Provenance. Boston, MA: USENIX, 2012.
[Online]. Available: https://www.usenix.org/conference/tapp12/workshop-
program/presentation/Martin
[16] X. Jiang, A. Walters, F. Buchholz, D. Xu, Y.-M. Wang, and E. H. Spafford,
“Provenance-AwareTracing of Worm Break-in and Contaminations: A Process
Coloring Approach,” in Proceedings of 26th IEEE International Conference
on Distributed Computing Systems (ICDCS’06), 2006, pp. 890–902.
[17] J. Yu, S. Zhang, P. Liu, and Z. Li, “LeakProber: A Framework for Profiling
Sensitive Data Leakage Paths,” in Proceedings of the First ACM Conference on
Data and Application Security and Privacy (CODASPY’11), 2011, pp. 75–84.
[18] S. Jones, C. Strong, D. D. E. Long, and E. L. Miller, “Tracking Emigrant Data
via Transient Provenance,” in Proceedings of the Third USENIX Workshop on
the Theory and Practice of Provenance (TaPP’11), Jun. 2011.
 Data provenance in cloud 273

[19] Y. Jadeja and K. Modi, “Cloud Computing – Concepts, Architecture and

Challenges,” in Proceedings of the International Conference on Computing,
Electronics and Electrical Technologies. Piscataway, NJ: IEEE, Mar. 2012.
[20] I. M. Abbadi and J. Lyle, “Challenges for Provenance in Cloud Com-
puting,” in Proceedings of the Third USENIX Workshop on the Theory
and Practice of Provenance, 2011, Heraklion, Crete, Greece. [Online].
Available: https://www.usenix.org/conference/tapp11/challenges-provenance-
cloud-computing
[21] M. Imran and H. Hlavacs, “Provenance in the Cloud: Why and How?,” in
Proceedings of the Third International Conference on Cloud Computing, Grids
and Virtualization (CLOUD COMPUTING 2012), 2012.
[22] K.-K. Muniswamy-Reddy, P. Macko, and M. Seltzer, “Making a Cloud
Provenance-Aware,” in Proceedings of the First Workshop on the The-
ory and Practice of Provenance (TaPP). USENIX, Feb. 2009. [Online].
Available: http://www.usenix.org/events/tapp09/tech/full_papers/muniswamy-
reddy/muniswamy-reddy_html/
[23] M. D. Allen, L. Seligman, B. Blaustein, and A. Chapman, “Provenance
Capture and Use: A Practical Guide,” The MITRE Corporation, Tech.
Rep., 15 June 2010. [Online]. Available: https://www.mitre.org/sites/default/
files/publications/practical-provenance-guide-MP100128.pdf
[24] K.-K. Muniswamy-Reddy, D. A. Holland, U. Braun, and M. Seltzer,
“Provenance-aware Storage Systems,” in Proceedings of the Conference on
USENIX’06 Annual Technical Conference (ATEC’06), 2006, p. 4.
[25] A. Gehani and D. Tariq, “SPADE: Support for Provenance Auditing in Dis-
tributed Environments,” in Middleware 2012, ser. Lecture Notes in Computer
Science, P. Narasimhan and P. Triantafillou, Eds. Berlin: Springer, 2012, vol.
7662, pp. 101–120. [Online]. Available: http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-
35170-9_6
[26] I. Suriarachchi, Q. G. Zhou, and B. Plale, “Komadu: A Capture and Visualiza-
tion System for Scientific Data Provenance,” Open Research Software, vol. 3,
no. 1, pp. 1–7, 2015.
[27] M. A. W. Ryan and K.L. Ko, “Progger: A Efficient, Tamper-Evident Kernel-
Space Logger for Cloud Data Provenance Tracking,” in Proceedings of the
Seventh IEEE International Conference on Cloud Computing (CLOUD’14),
Anchorage, Alaska, USA, June 2014.
[28] L. Moreau and P. Groth, Provenance: An Introduction to PROV. Synthesis Lec-
tures on the SemanticWeb: Theory andTechnology. San Rafael, CA: Morgan &
Claypool, 2013.
[29] L. Moreau, P. Missier, K. Belhajjame, et al., “PROV-DM: The PROV Data
Model,” Retrieved: 04/09/2014 from W3C Recommendations, April 2013.
[Online]. Available: http://www.w3.org/TR/prov-dm/
[30] G. B. Coe., R. C. Doty, M. D. Allen, and A. Chapman, “Provenance Cap-
ture Disparities Highlighted through Datasets,” in Sixth Workshop on the
Theory and Practice of Provenance, TaPP’14, 12–13 June 2014, Cologne,
Germany.
274 Data security in cloud computing

[31] K. H. Lee, X. Zhang, and D. Xu, “High Accuracy Attack Provenance via
Binary-based Execution Partition,” in Proceedings of Annual Network and
Distributed System Security Symposium, April 2013, San Diego, CA.
[32] L. Lamport, “Time, Clocks, and the Ordering of Events in a Distributed
System,” Communication of the ACM, vol. 21, no. 7, pp. 558–565, Jul. 1978.
[Online]. Available: http://doi.acm.org/10.1145/359545.359563
[33] P. J. Guo and M. Seltzer, “Burrito: Wrapping Your Lab Notebook in Compu-
tational Infrastructure,” in USENIX Workshop on the Theory and Practice of
Provenance (TaPP), 2012.
[34] P. Ruth, D. Xu, B. Bhargava, and F. Regnier, “E-notebook Middleware
for Accountability and Reputation Based Trust in Distributed Data Sharing
Communities,” in Proceedings of Second International Conference on Trust
Management, 2004, pp. 161–175.
[35] Mulesoft.org, “Anypoint Platform,” https://developer.mulesoft.com/ (Last
accessed: 14/03/17), 2017.
[36] M. D. Allen, A. Chapman, B. Blaustein, and L. Seligman, Capturing Prove-
nance in the Wild. Berlin: Springer, 2010, pp. 98–101. [Online]. Available:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-17819-1_12
[37] K.-K. Muniswamy-Reddy, U. Braun, D. A. Holland, et al., “Layering in
Provenance Systems,” in Proceedings of the 2009 Conference on USENIX
Annual Technical Conference, ser. USENIX’09. Berkeley, CA, USA:
USENIX Association, 2009, pp. 10–10. [Online]. Available: http://dl.acm.org/
citation.cfm?id=1855807.1855817
[38] S. Magliacane, “Reconstructing Provenance,” The Semantic Web – ISWC,
pp. 399–406, 2012.
[39] S. Magliacane and P. Groth, “Towards Reconstructing the Provenance of Clin-
ical Guidelines,” in Proceedings of Fifth International Workshop on Semantic
Web Applications and Tools for Life Science (SWAT4LS), vol. 952, 2012.
[Online]. Available: http://ceur-ws.org/Vol-952/paper_36.pdf
[40] V. Deolalikar and H. Laffitte, “Provenance as Data Mining: Combining File
System Metadata with Content Analysis,” in Proceeding of First Workshop on
Theory and Practice of Provenance (TAPP’09), 2009.
[41] A. Aierken, D. B. Davis, Q. Zhang, K. Gupta, A. Wong, and H. U.
Asuncion, “A Multi-level Funneling Approach to Data Provenance Recon-
struction,” in Proceedings of the 2014 IEEE 10th International Conference on
e-Science – Volume 02, ser. E-SCIENCE’14. Washington, DC, USA: IEEE
Computer Society, 2014, pp. 71–74. [Online]. Available: http://dx.doi.org/
10.1109/eScience.2014.54
[42] T. D. Nies, S. Coppens, D. V. Deursen, E. Mannens, and R. V. de Walle,
“Automatic Discovery of High-Level Provenance using Semantic Similarity,”
in Proceedings of the Fourth International Conference on Provenance and
Annotation of Data and Processes (IPAW), 2012, pp. 97–110.
[43] L. Moreau and P. Missier, “PROV DM – W3C Working Group Note,”
https://www.w3.org/TR/2013/REC-prov-dm-20130430/ (Last accessed:
13/06/2016), April 2013.
 Data provenance in cloud 275

[44] P. Groth, Y. Gil, and S. Magliacane, “Automatic Metadata Annotation through

Reconstructing Provenance,” in Third International Workshop on the role of
Semantic Web in Provenance Management (ESWC), 2012.
[45] P. E. Hart, N. J. Nilsson, and B. Raphael, “A Formal Basis for the Heuris-
tic Determination of Minimum Cost Paths,” IEEE Transactions on Systems
Science and Cybernetics, vol. 4, no. 2, pp. 100–107, Feb. 1968.
[46] M. R. Huq, P. M. G. Apers, and A. Wombacher, “ProvenanceCurious: A Tool to
Infer Data Provenance from Scripts,” in Proceedings of the 16th International
Conference on Extending Database Technology (EDBT), 2013, pp. 765–768.
[47] Y. S. Tan, R. K. L. Ko, P. Jagadpramana, et al., “Tracking of Data Leaving
the Cloud,” in Proceedings of IEEE 11th International Conference on Trust,
Security and Privacy in Computing and Communications (TrustCom’12),
2012.
[48] R. Hasan, R. Sion, and M. Winslett, “The Case of the Fake Picasso: Prevent-
ing History Forgery with Secure Provenance,” in Proceedings of the Seventh
Conference on Files and Storage Technologies (FAST’09), 2009, pp. 1–14.
This page intentionally left blank
 Chapter 13
Security visualization for cloud computing:
an overview
Jeffery Garae1 , Ryan K. L. Ko1 , and Mark Apperley1

Abstract

Cloud services continue to attract organizations with advantages that enable subsidiary
costs. While there are advantages, security in the cloud is an ongoing challenging pro-
cess for cloud providers and users. Cyber-threats are penetrating cloud technologies
and exposing flaws in the cloud technologies. Data Provenance as a Security Visual-
ization Service (DPaaSVS) and Security Visualization as a Cloud Service (SVaaCS)
for cloud technologies are solutions to help track and monitor data in the cloud.
Either data is at-rest or in in-transit, security visualization empowers cloud providers
and users to track and monitor their data movements. Security visualization refers
to the concept of using visualization to represent security events. In this chapter, we
(1) provide our security visualization standardized model and (2) provide the secu-
rity visualization intelligence framework model and finally discuss several security
visualization use-cases.

13.1 Introduction
Providing security for data in cloud computing has been achieved in many ways and
methods, mainly by past and existing research, technology solutions and innovations.
Cloud providers and platforms are offering attractive services which spans across
the wider spectrum of both business and home users. However, existing solutions are
tailored towards the interests of cloud providers and largely for business organizations
but less for the cloud end-users. Traditional computer security technologies such as
firewalls, antivirus solutions and web proxies that scan and filter malicious packets
were the foundation of computer security. These solutions faced challenges when
cloud technologies emerged. The ability to protect data from exploitation, data breach
and data leakage has been a challenge. And while cloud technologies provide efficient

1
Cyber Security Lab, Department of Computer Science, University of Waikato, New Zealand
278 Data security in cloud computing

services to desirable users [1], current cloud technology providers are faced with data
security challenges. For example, an attacker is able to:

1. Carry out a Denial of Service (DoS) attack on the server.

2. Intercept data sent from client to the server.
3. Intercept and/or spoof the reply from the server to the client [2].

This chapter emphasizes on enhancing existing cloud computing security solu-

tions with security visualization and most importantly addressing the users’ queries
such as: what has happened to my data?, is my data secure in the cloud? and how can
I know what is happening to my data or who is touching my data in the cloud? We will
be addressing these queries from the data collection and data storage point-of-view
with examples from law enforcement investigations and operations.
However, in order for security visualization to be an effective added feature into
cloud computing technologies, datasets are needed on a real-time state [3]. Datasets
are the key to understanding what has happened over internal networks and over cloud
infrastructures. This means logging mechanisms are required. A vast amount of data
collected from security-related events such as logging mechanisms and social media
logs requires analytics and intelligence tools to explore, analyze and report on security
events. These are seen in current cyber security trends in technologies demanded by
security research organizations and industries. Technology trends are in the area of
data analytics and threat intelligence. For example, for law enforcement investiga-
tions threat intelligence tools around malware and ransomware attacks are of interest.
Understanding malware and ransomware patterns, behavior and attack landscapes are
of prime importance [4]. However, with existing intelligence tools, lack of data pro-
cessing power and effective reporting features affects the investigation process [5].
This creates a difficult and tedious task for the entire investigation process. A solution
to improving the time spent on analyzing and investigating such complex and large
dataset is with the use of security visualization. In this chapter, we introduce our
“Security Visualization Framework for Cloud Computing.” The framework proposes
the following features for cloud platforms:

1. Data Provenance as a Security Visualization Service (DPaaSVS)

2. Security Visualization as a Service (SVaaS)
3. User-centric Visualization Intelligence (UVI).

13.1.1 Motivation and objectives for this chapter

The motivation for this chapter is to highlight the importance of data security in cloud
computing, stating the importance of adding visualization methodologies to measure
how effective security visualization to cloud service reporting features. In return, it
is a solution to the common user question – is my data secure in the cloud?
This chapter aims to return control of data to users with the use of security
visualization for interactions between users (cloud customers) and security tech-
nologies in the cloud. The overall goal of this chapter is to share security ideas
and insights on how security visualization can enhance cloud technologies with
 Security visualization for cloud computing: an overview 279

user-centric visual approaches for customers when using cloud services and providing
situation awareness to the cloud users [6].
While visualization has been used across multiple research domains, ranging
from its origins in art to medical/pharmaceutical domain, researchers and businesses
are tapping into using visualization mainly for two purposes: visualization for explo-
ration and visualization for reporting. The reason is that visualization facilitates the
missing gap between an anxious user and the given medium examined (visualization,
reports, etc.). Visualization allows users to psychologically and intellectually build
visual views of the examined medium which naturally being processed by human
perception and cognition.
Although there are many visualizations used out in cloud technologies and visu-
alization domains, the focus of this chapter is on effective security visualization with
use-cases primarily for law enforcement – “Threat Intelligence and Data Analytics,”
the use of user-centric visualizations and generally in other security organizations
such as financial and academia. Sub objectives are stated below to address effective
intelligence reporting as follows:

1. Provide a way forward to establishing a standardized law enforcement security

visualization standard and model for security events reporting.
2. Provide the Security Visualization framework for cloud platforms.
3. Develop a security visualization intelligence (SVInt) prototype that acts as a
central visualization framework in providing reports to law enforcement personals
when needed.
4. Discuss a Bitcoin block chain visualization use-case that shows Bitcoin transac-
tion relationships between Bitcoin wallets and transaction IDs. The aim of this
visualization is to identify possible suspicious Bitcoin tags that are involved in
law enforcement investigations.
5. Discuss how security visualization can be used to show cyber-threats around the
world.

13.1.2 Chapter outline

Section 13.2 begins with providing background information around cloud technolo-
gies, visualization and data security. Data security in cloud computing workflow
challenges is discussed to identify the gaps and set the need to provide alternative
solutions. Analyzing the research gaps, the challenges, and the need to find user-
centric security solutions for cloud computing technologies emerges with reasons to
establish security models is discussed in Section 13.3. Security Visualization standard
(SCeeL-VisT) with guidelines of how security visualization should be developed and
used are presented in Section 13.3.2. SCeeL-VisT going on to establish our security
visualization framework that consists of two main services, DPaaSVS and SVaaS,
is discussed in Section 13.4. Both DPaaSVS and SVaaS aim to provide cloud users
with security and situation awareness. Security visualization application use-cases
for data security in cloud platforms are discussed in Section 13.4.1. Section 13.5
280 Data security in cloud computing

presents new use-cases with the law enforcement approach of leveraging security
visualization for Bitcoin investigations and malware threat visualizations. Finally,
Section 13.6 provides the concluding remarks of this chapter.

13.2 Background: security visualization and data security

The term Security Visualization refers to the concept of using visualization for
security measures [7]. For example, visualizing unauthorized access, information-
leakage, and tracking malicious web traffic [8–10]. Other purposes include data
visual analytics and threat intelligence, i.e., tracking and monitoring of security-
related events [8,10,11,40]. For cloud technologies, adding the concept of security
visualization to existing cloud services creates a “trust” relationship between the ser-
vices used and the users. Although cloud technologies offer visualization features, it
is for the purpose of analytics and reporting. The need for real-time security visual-
ization framework to enable users to see and observe data movement and even being
alerted by the service of a suspicious threat is crucial [12].
Whether its public or private cloud, high-performance parallel computing with the
cloud environment and cloud technologies by vendors allows users to provision large
quantities of instances efficiently [13]. Cloud technologies are expanding throughout
the Internet realm, offering a wide range of services beginning from business man-
agement platforms, data analytics tools to facilitating efficient means for Internet
of Things (IoT) [14,15]. However, security has become a major concern for every
cloud provider and cloud user. For providers, implementing proper secure platforms
is a priority whereas for users, the ever growing thoughts of how secure their data
is on the cloud is their main concern [16]. Therefore, there are always great needs
to implement security applications, tools and techniques specifically targeting cloud
providers and users, for example, secure tracking and monitoring of data movement
and processes in SaaS infrastructure [17].

13.2.1 Security visualization for data security

Cloud computing leverages and enhances day-to-day business operations. While it is
successful and has been envisioned as the modern method for information technol-
ogy enterprises, it brings about many new security challenges. This prompts cyber
security researchers and experts to find ways to solve these challenges. These chal-
lenges revolve around data/information security namely confidentiality, integrity and
availability of the data in cloud computing.
An increase in the number of users browsing the web daily has brought the world
into a rapid change and ever increase advantages and also disadvantages. Business
intelligence and global network are some of the advantages rising in parallel to the
technological shift. However, cyber-attacks are increasing rapidly as reported by secu-
rity firms around the world. This brings a lot of work for professionals concerned over
cyber-attacks such as cyber security researchers, law enforcement, and security ana-
lysts. On that note, current cyber security workflow, techniques and methodologies
 Security visualization for cloud computing: an overview 281

lack the assessment factor. Security visualization in a quick-to-action form with pre-
sentable insights directed towards law enforcement is a catalyst to minimize the time
spent on addressing/analyzing cyber security issues.
Data security in organizations and Internet is made aware of through security
situational awareness. Adding visualization tools to provide data security such as
NVisionIP [18], PortVis [19] and VisFlowConnect [20] allows security experts to
increase their knowledge on the current state of their network. NVisionIP’s primary
focus is on detection by leveraging on visual representation of suspected segments
of the network. PortVis’s emphasis is on security event data discovery. It monitors
data flow over Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) ports for security events. The
VisFlowConnect tool enhances the ability of security administrators to detect and
investigate anomalous data traffic between an internal local network and external
networks. With all the various functionalities mentioned above, these tools are able to
discover and observe varieties of interesting network traffic patterns and behaviors.
However, there are continuous data security challenges especially for cloud
technologies. These challenges which are listed [21] include:

● data privacy issues [22],

● user data confidentialities,
● the ability to control and secure sensitive corporate data,
● trust relationships among cloud providers and cloud users [23],
● system monitoring services and logs [24].

The data security challenges mentioned also affect how security visualization is
used when representing security events and scenarios. The introduction of security
visualization into data security research has helped to identify and expose specific
security needs that are targeted to data in the cloud.

13.2.2 The need for security visualization

There are existing methods of keeping track of events on the cloud and providing
analytic reports for cloud services. For example, Google Analytics [25] is used for web
traffic monitoring and effectiveness analytics [26]. Amazon Web Services, Google
App Engine, and Microsoft Azure have transformed cloud technologies to whole
new level and driving business management services. However, with these cloud
technologies, security in the cloud is a challenge. There is a great need for user-centric
security technologies to empower and alert users [1].
Alternatively, law enforcement is also facing greater challenge when more than
half of the business environments are migrating into cloud service technologies. Inves-
tigations are becoming difficult due to existing security tools capabilities to help
solve investigations. Tracking and monitoring data movement and threats over the
Internet becomes a huge challenge. Investigation reports often fall short with evi-
dence integrity and genuineness and are difficult to be admissible to courts. Issues
of preserving evidence and sharing information across secure challenges are also a
challenge.
282 Data security in cloud computing

Data or information loss is a concerning factor transporting information across

cloud platforms. Investigation datasets grow at a fast rate and there is a need to
store them securely. For example, a number of social media posts, images, physical
evidence, dump files’ application logs, system logs, and network logs have been
significantly grown. In addition, analyzing complex datasets can be a tedious task.
Security visualization is a potential solution for law enforcement reporting. It has
the ability to simplify complex amount of data (evidences, work processes, etc.) into
simple, clear, and efficient quick-to-action visual representation that has an effective
impact on all targeted audiences (e.g., CEOs, researchers, technical specialists, and
even the law enforcement officers in general). Overall, security visualization for law
enforcement aims to provide useful insights that can aid investigations and reports on
daily operations within the law enforcement sector.
With a clear understanding of how cloud technologies are contributing to the
Internet and the challenges surrounding the technology services available, the next
section provides a prominent approach to empowering cloud providers and cloud
users.

13.3 A security visualization standardization model

Often security requires standards, policies, and guidelines to help safeguard a set of
platforms when organizations handle sensitive data. In order for any security model
to effectively function, certain requirements have to be met. The requirements include
standards, guidelines, policies, and trainings around security visualizations with the
aim of providing the users with the most useful insights on certain visualization
purposes.
Security visualization standards are published materials that attempt to safeguard
the security visualization environment. It is important and largely contributes to how
visualizations provide security insights to users. Understanding what makes a visu-
alization useful depends on how simple, clear, effective, and appropriate the type of
security event is intended to be visually represented. Effective security visualization
approaches heavily rely on user perceptions and cognitive abilities to connect the dots
between users and visualizations.

13.3.1 Effective security visualization approaches

For a security visualization to stand out and capture its audience, it should take
into consideration of certain prerequisites. In the field of security visualization for
cloud computing, these prerequisites stem from two sources: users (targeted audience)
and threat landscapes. Security visualization researchers and developers often ask
themselves the following questions below in order to identify targeted audiences:
1. Who are the users?
2. What do the users want to see?
3. What security tasks can be performed using these visualizations?
4. When would these security visualization be used?
 Security visualization for cloud computing: an overview 283

And from the threat landscape approach, researchers and developers often ask
the following questions below:

1. What type of attack is visualized?

2. When did the attack take place?
3. What is the origin (source) and destination of the attack being visualized?
4. What is the reason of visualizing this attack?

The purpose of this section is to outline how effective and efficient the use
of security visualization within law enforcement operations and investigations is.
Regardless of existing security challenges faced by security firms [27] such as big
data analytics, there is always the need to improve how security tools are performing.
While there are other methods aiding law enforcement operations and investigations,
the application of security visualization into the operations can minimize the time
spent on investigations and other work processes. In order to achieve that, the law
enforcement needs to create a set of visualization standards which act as indicators in
various processes. For example, the current use of INTERPOL’s “International Notice
System [28],” the color Red in Red Notices indicates “Wanted Person,” Yellow Notices
indicates “Missing Person” and so on [29]. This helps law enforcement personals to
quickly act upon such alerts when received at the National Central Bureaus (NCB) in
different member countries and offices.
While the INTERPOL’s Notice System uses colors to indicate different human
investigation processes, there is a need to expand the idea and develop a visualization
standard for law enforcement. This means, creating similar color and shape standards
to visually represent various cyber-attacks. For example, over any network and system
investigations, the color “Green” can be used to represent “normal web traffic.”
Suspicious traffic can be visually represented with the color “Yellow.” Malware traffic
can be visually represented with the color “Red.” However, network traffic can be
symbolized using “Circles” instead of “Rectangles,” just to distinguish between the
INTERPOL’s Notice System and the network traffic.
Other cyber threats and attacks can be visualized differently, however keeping
the standard consistent across different law enforcement visualization applications
will gradually establish common grounds with visual reports and investigations. As
a result, information processing will be fast and effective because humans naturally
have the cognitive ability to process visual images and information faster than reading
words.

13.3.2 Security Visualization Standard (SCeeL-VisT)

Security visualizations are often confusing when users do not have a fair idea of
how a visualization platform works or what the intended purpose of confronting such
visualizations. Therefore, establishing a security visualization standard helps to cre-
ate scopes of how visualizations would impact business or organization. Standards
also maintain and control the type of visual outputs required for the users to view.
Organizations and users need security visualization to help make sense of complex
284 Data security in cloud computing

data collected from cyber-attacks targeting cloud technologies. Establishing a secu-

rity visualization standard as a component of the overall security framework for an
organization would have a high impact on reducing intrusions and threats penetrating
the cloud technologies. The visualization standards can provide guidance for develop-
ers during the design and implementation stage, and often the visual output provides
situation awareness to the users of cloud technologies.
The SCeeL-VisT is a standard created to help standardize how security visualiza-
tions could be implemented and presented. The core targeted audience would be the
visualization developers and users of the visualization. Having to bring the developers
and users together into one realm, there is a higher probability of getting insights from
the source to the users in an effective time frame.
SCeeL-VisT provides a brief content and overview of the work-progress security
visualization standard visualizing security events out from complex datasets. It is
important that the visualization developers and users understand what is needed to
visualize. With a clear understanding, developing a visualization should gather all
security features intended to visualize from the output. The two distinctive parts of
the security visualization standard are as follows:
1. Part 1: Understanding what is needed: In this stage, the developers have to
understand the purpose of the intended visualization, nature of the data collected,
and most importantly the users who will be viewing the given visualization.
2. Part 2: Security visualization process: In this stage, a clear understanding of who
the targeted audience are is very important. The right color choice and object
selection are required for an effective visual output.

Security Visualization Standard (SCeeL-VisT)

Part 1: Understanding What Is Needed

1. The Problem: Identification of security events
● Identify security events (e.g., malware attack, and SQL injection) and data
type (raw data: log files, social media data, etc.)
● Understand the nature of data (e.g., financial data and health data)
2. The Purpose: Know the visualization type and technique
● Understand the intension of security visualization (e.g., show relation-
ships)
● Decision: exploratory or reporting visualization, security visualization
technique (e.g., categorizing: time-base, provenance-base attack-base)
3. Cyber-Attack Landscape: Know the cyber-attack location (e.g., network,
systems, and application layer)
● Know the point of attack (e.g., network attack and identify source and
destination of attack)
● Attribution of cyber-attack
 Security visualization for cloud computing: an overview 285

Part 2: Security Visualization Process

1. Visual Presentation Methodologies: How to present data visually
2. Color and Shape Standard for Security: Decision on choice of colors
● Standardizing main color choices
– Color: Red = High attack nature or violation (e.g., malware process)
– Color: Yellow = Suspicious process (e.g., IP address)
– Color: Green = Good or normal process (e.g., network traffic)
– Color: Blue = Informational (intelligence) process (IP address)
– Color: Black = Deleted, traces: non-existed (e.g., deleted file)
● Standardizing main shapes choices
– Shape: Circle = Nodes (e.g., network nodes)
– Shape: Rectangle = Files (e.g., .docs and .jpeg)
– Shape: Square = Data clusters (e.g., IP address – network traffic)
– Shape: Diamond = Web/social media process (social media data)
● Standardizing use of line types
– Line: Single line (—) = Relationships, connections, links, prove-
nance, time-base (e.g., between two network nodes)
– Line: dotted line (- - -) = Possible relationships (e.g., .docs, .jpeg)
– Line: Solid arrow ( → ) = Direction of relationship or interaction
– Line: Dotted arrow ( − − > ) = Predicted relationship or interaction
3. Security Visualization Techniques: Provenance and attribution-base, user-
centered, real-time base
4. Security Visualization Type: Animated, 3D, static, etc.

13.4 Security visualization intelligence framework

Past visualization technologies and threat intelligence frameworks have provided
insights to users but often isolate most visualization separately for the purpose of
just providing visualization for specific purpose. Our security visualization intelli-
gence model aims to incorporate multiple security visualization landscapes to show
relationships between several different attack landscapes.
Figure 13.1 provides an overview of the proposed security visualization model for
cloud technologies, particularly for SaaS. A part of web applications in the cloud ser-
vices, the “Added Security Visualization Framework,” injects visualization options for
users to use. This proposed security visualization framework aims to reduce the doubts
in cloud users when using cloud technologies, by offering security visualizations to
track, monitor and even alert them of any suspicious behavior.

13.4.1 Security Visualization as a Cloud Service

While cloud computing represents the most exciting computing paradigm shift in
information technology, security over the data in the cloud is the concern for most
286 Data security in cloud computing

Web applications

DPaaSVS

Cloud
provider

SaaS provider/ SaaS users

cloud users
SVaaS

Added security
visualization framework

Figure 13.1 Security visualization framework – cloud computinga

users of the cloud today [30]. An added sub-component to working towards the concept
of a Security-as-a-Service (SECaaS) model [31] is to observe user activities, web
traffics and keeping track of what is happening in the cloud services [32]. Adding the
security visualization as a service model into security in the cloud enables visibility
in the cloud processes for both providers and customers. It installs confidence and a
trust relationship between cloud customers and the service offered. Fujitsu’s security
visualization dashboard has helped to improve security governance in the cloud and
enabled customers to visualize the efficiency and cost-effectiveness of information
security measures [33].
The use of visual dashboards in business management software packages has
provided businesses with the opportunity to include visual parts to the entire report-
ing framework. Amazon’s QuickSight, a business intelligence for Big Data, provides
visual analytics [34]. Google’s cloud datalab tool offers data exploration, analysis,
visualization and machine learning capabilities [35]. Microsoft Azure can produce
Power Bi, a Big Data solution, with live dashboard and attractive visualization [36].
MicrosoftAzure’s Power Bi tool shown in Figure 13.2 displays how visualization dash-
boards are used to visually analyze data and present interesting insights. In Figure 13.2,
Power Bi tool is used to show a persons’ movement. Dashboard visualizations aim to
consolidate most information onto a single screen view, showing users all the neces-
sary information needed. However, adding the concept of Security Visualization as a
Cloud Service (SVaaCS) into the cloud services to enhance dashboard visualizations
helps to improve the way data security is presented with visualization.

13.4.2 Data Provenance as a Security Visualization Service

Data provenance is defined in the context of this chapter as a series of chronicles
and the derivation history of data on metadata [37]. Incorporating the concept of data

a
A colored figure of the “DPaaSVS and SVaaS: Cloud Computing Security Visualization Framework.”
[Online]: https://crow.org.nz/security-visualization/Figure-13.1_SaaSSecVis
 Security visualization for cloud computing: an overview 287

Figure 13.2 Azure’s Power Bi Analytic visualizationb

Address output tree

Unknown

c82e9d0848: Received

1G6GjEEMMBTnnj1BjNKkSRknpGQRizeSwz

3yCpqJyrNzHSrnperZnTMSwLa5K

c4caad675f: Sent 1DMdik1y8s8HsTPiL3FbErxqB6FqNw7AUY

Figure 13.3 A Bitcoin transaction address visualizationc

provenance into security visualization steps up visualization capabilities for customers

using cloud services. The ability to track data actions on a piece of data stored on
the cloud with the ability to observe past events and reconstruct any events when in
doubt offers the data action to create the notion of Data Provenance as a Security
Visualization Service (DPaaSVS). For example, tracking a Bitcoin payment of a
service acquired by observing the Bitcoin transaction movement from the sender to
the receiver is shown in Figure 13.3.

b
A colored figure of the “Azure’s Power Bi Analytic Visualization.” [Online]: https://crow.org.nz/security-
visualization/Figure-13.2_PowerBI_2
c
A colored figure of the “A Bitcoin Transaction Address Visualization.” [Online]:
https://crow.org.nz/security-visualization/Figure-13.3_Bitcoin_Address_Output_Tree
288 Data security in cloud computing

13.5 Security visualization intelligence model

Security visualization intelligence (SVInt) model provides law enforcement person-
nels with an enhanced investigation environment using visualization. The aim is to
provide an effective visual method of analyzing complex datasets and outputting
requested queries in a simple, clear, and efficient visual representation of the find-
ings to aid the law enforcement of day-to-day investigation process. And due to an
amount of workload and data complexity, SVInt is designed to incorporate various
intelligence tools into one framework and add visualization as the main tool to be
used for investigations, either for threat intelligences, observing criminal activities
and normal day-to-day information sharing processes. The current SVInt framework
provides:

1. A Bitcoin visualization platform for Bitcoin transaction relationship

visualization.
2. Threat report visualization platform showing top malware threats using geo-
locations.
3. A forensic taxonomy analytic tool.
4. A platform to support future intelligence visualization tools.

13.5.1 Bitcoin visualization

The SVInt enhances an in-house Blockchain Explorer tool that identifies and
explores Bitcoin transactions relationships. The Blockchain Explorer allows law
enforcement users to search for specific Bitcoin wallet IDs and analyze possible
transaction connections with other wallet IDs and market places that are involved
in criminal investigations. The current Blockchain Explorer acts as an identifier to
suspicious address tags and with the introduction of the “Bitcoin Transaction Visual-
ization,” visual representations features of Bitcoin transactions are produced to show
transaction relationships.
We later classify the transactions into different clusters to see possible transactions
relationships and patterns. Our Bitcoin visualization is by default a suspicious-
tag-centric visual approach where Bitcoin suspicious tags are the center of visual
relationships. Based on suspicious-tag search on the Blockchain Explorer, the data
collected are visualized in the Bitcoin visualization interface. An example of a
visualization generated by the Blockchain Explorer is shown in Figure 13.4.
A classic Bitcoin live visualization intelligence map produced by BitNodes [38]
shows the real-time Bitcoin transactions around the world as shown in Figure 13.5.
Bitcoin transactions are indicated using IP address nodes used for the transactions.
Comparing with the SVInt Bitcoin transaction visualization, BitNodes visualization
provides users with a geo-location Bitcoin visualization while SVInt Bitcoin visual-
ization provides visual transactions relationships amount from online Bitcoin explorer
trading platform.
 Security visualization for cloud computing: an overview 289

Figure 13.4 SVInt: Bitcoin transaction visualizationd

Figure 13.5 BitNodes – Bitcoin Live Map visualizatione

d
A colored figure of the “SVInt: Bitcoin Transaction Visualization.” [Online]: https://crow.org.nz/security-
visualization/Figure-13.4_Blockchain_Vis
e
A colored figure of the “BitNodes - Bitcoin Live Map Visualization.” [Online]:
https://crow.org.nz/security-visualization/Figure-13.5_BitNodes
290 Data security in cloud computing

Figure 13.6 SVInt: threat visualization intelligencef

13.5.2 Threat intelligence visualization

Another example of live visualization that empowers security professional, especially
aids law enforcement investigations is the ability to visualize malware threats affecting
systems and networks around the world. The threat intelligence security visualization
tool was developed specifically to analyze and monitor threats with the purpose of
being able to attribute malware attacks back to the source and offenders. Based on
weekly data collected from security logging tools around the world, the threat intel-
ligence visualization highlights threats that were able to penetrate organization and
individuals. With available datasets, the choice of using geo-location to visually rep-
resent the cyber-threats is to provide viewers of how cyber-attacks are affecting the
Internet. Adding the concept of intelligence into the scenario, tracking and monitoring
certain known cyber-attacks can be useful to track known cybercrime groups from
known attack locations. Figure 13.6 represents malware attacks from around the world
on a weekly time frame. This adds value to law enforcement investigations by using
geo-location visualization and correlating it with other intelligence visualization such
as Bitcoin transaction visualization. By providing multiple types of visualization visu-
alized concurrently, investigators can help to connect both with patterns and possible
trends of attacks. The security visualization platform allows users to view cyber-attack
statistics with visual analysis capabilities based on preferred search of interest.

f
A colored figure of the “SVInt: Threat Intelligence Visualization.” [Online]: https://crow.org.nz/security-
visualization/Figure-13.6_ThreatGeoMap
 Security visualization for cloud computing: an overview 291

Type Motive Offender

Man-in-the- Personal
Middle Entertainment Individual

Denial-of- Emotional or Hacktivist

Service Psychological

Worm Intelligence Country

Virus Ideological Organized

Crime

Trojan Financial Terrorist

Adware Service Private Sector

Ransomware Destruction Undefined

Sexual
Spyware Impulse

Phishing Psychiatric
Illness

Spear phishing Undefined

Undefined

Figure 13.7 SVInt: ForensicTMO visualization analyticsg

13.5.3 ForensicTMO – analytic tool

Although most security tools emphasize on preventing cyber-attacks, the post event
of cyber-attacks requires security knowledge and situation awareness as well [18].
In order to understand how bad an attack is, forensic tools are required. As part of the
SVInt, we have added external analytic tools, the ForensicTMO [39], a motive-centric
Man-in-the-Middle-Attack (MITMA) investigation tool which aims to minimize the
time spent on analyzing a motive behind a cyber-attack. The ForensicTMO applica-
tion provides a preliminary forensic analysis of cyber-attacks that can be used by law
enforcement officials as part of their investigations. It is a technical representation of
the Forensic Taxonomy Extension shown in Figure 13.7, which is based on a classifi-
cation framework developed for the classification of Man-in-the-Middle attacks. The
forensic taxonomy extension illustrates the possible relationships between the taxon-
omy categories type, motive and offender. A visual representation used in Figure 13.7
do not have any implied meaning but allow a user to quickly identify relationships
between motives and a particular type or offender, as well as the relationships within
the type and offender category. The forensic taxonomy is designed to be motive centric,

g
A colored figure of the “ForensicTMO Visualization Analytics.” [Online]: https://crow.org.nz/security-
visualization/Figure-13.7_Forensic_Extension_Attrib
292 Data security in cloud computing

as it is often the most apparent and easily identified characteristic of a cybercrime.

Motives are tested throughout the course of an investigation resulting in revisions and
changes to the motive until the motive can tie an offender to an attack type. During the
course of an investigation it is common for the motive to lead to the discovery of the
attack type and offender as a result of the investigation. As this is the natural behavior
of an investigation, we continue this trend by making the taxonomy motive-centric,
to streamline this process.

13.6 Concluding remarks

Cloud computing technologies change and shape the way Internet services were
offered. When using cloud services, users have to remind themselves of how their
data are being managed and stored. Security is always a challenge for both cloud
providers and cloud users.
In this chapter, SVaaS is used to bridge the gap between users and cloud plat-
forms. With use-cases from the law enforcement domain, SVaaS – a sub-component
of SECaaS – highlights how security visualizations are transforming cloud technolo-
gies. From an analytical perspective, DPaaSVS highlights security through tracking,
monitoring, and enabling user interaction with visual features for cloud services.
SVaaS and DPaaSVS connect the users perception of how users’ data activities while
their data are stored and processed in the cloud. Finally, security visualization creates
the sense of trust and confidence to both cloud providers and customers.

References
[1] Jin, H., S. Ibrahim, T. Bell, W. Gao, D. Huang, and S. Wu, “Cloud types and
services,” in Handbook of Cloud Computing, B. Furht and A. Escalante, Eds.
Boston, MA: Springer, 2010, pp. 335–355.
[2] Muttik, I. and C. Barton. “Cloud security technologies.” Information Security
Technical Report, 14(1) (2009): 1–6.
[3] Hundhausen, C. D., S. A. Douglas, and J. T. Stasko. “A meta-study of algorithm
visualization effectiveness.” Journal of Visual Languages & Computing 13,
no. 3 (2002): 259–290.
[4] “Kaspersky Security Bulletin 2015. Overall statistics for 2015 – Securelist.”
[Online]. Available: https://securelist.com/analysis/kaspersky-security-
bulletin/73038/kaspersky-security-bulletin-2015-overall-statistics-for-2015/.
[Accessed: 12-Jan-2017].
[5] Best, D. M., A. Endert, and D. Kidwell. “7 key challenges for visualiza-
tion in cyber network defense.” In Proceedings of the Eleventh Workshop on
Visualization for Cyber Security, pp. 33–40. Paris, France: ACM, 2014.
[6] I. Kotenko and E. Novikova, “Visualization of security metrics for cyber sit-
uation awareness,” in 2014 Ninth International Conference on Availability,
Reliability and Security, 2014, pp. 506–513.
 Security visualization for cloud computing: an overview 293

[7] Goodall, J. R. “Introduction to visualization for computer security,” in VizSEC

2007, pp. 1–17. Berlin: Springer, 2008.
[8] L. SAS, “Linkurious – Understand the connections in your data,” Linkurious.
[Online]. Available: http://linkurio.us. [Accessed: 12-Jan-2017].
[9] Wesley, R., M. Eldridge, and P. T. Terlecki. “An analytic data engine for visu-
alization in tableau,” in Proceedings of the 2011 ACM SIGMOD International
Conference on Management of Data, pp. 1185–1194. Athens, Greece: ACM,
2011.
[10] Papadakakis, N., E. P. Markatos, and A. E. Papathanasiou. “Palantir:
A visualization tool for the world wide web,” in INET 98 Proceedings.
1998.
[11] Sarma, A., and A. Van Der Hoek. “Palantir: Coordinating distributed
workspaces,” in Computer Software and Applications Conference, 2002.
COMPSAC 2002. Proceedings. 26th Annual International, Oxford, UK,
pp. 1093–1097. IEEE, 2002.
[12] Lee, C. P., J. Trost, N. Gibbs, R. Beyah, and J. A. Copeland. “Visual firewall:
Real-time network security monitor,” in IEEE Workshop on Visualization for
Computer Security, 2005 (VizSEC’05), Minneapolis, MN, USA, pp. 129–136.
IEEE, 2005.
[13] Ekanayake, J., and G. Fox. “High performance parallel computing with clouds
and cloud technologies,” in International Conference on Cloud Computing,
pp. 20–38. Berlin: Springer, 2009.
[14] Weinhardt, C., A. Anandasivam, B. Blau, et al. “Cloud computing – A classi-
fication, business models, and research directions.” Business & Information
Systems Engineering 1, no. 5 (2009): 391–399.
[15] Tao, Fei, Ying Cheng, Li Da Xu, Lin Zhang, and Bo Hu Li. “CCIoT-CMfg:
Cloud computing and internet of things-based cloud manufacturing service
system.” IEEE Transactions on Industrial Informatics 10, no. 2 (2014):
1435–1442.
[16] Carlin, S., and K. Curran. “Cloud computing technologies.” International
Journal of Cloud Computing and Services Science 1, no. 2 (2012): 59.
[17] Plaza, B. “Monitoring web traffic source effectiveness with Google Analytics:
An experiment with time series.” Aslib Proceedings 61, no. 5 (2009):
474–482.
[18] Lakkaraju, K., W. Yurcik, and A. J. Lee. “NVisionIP: Netflow visualizations
of system state for security situational awareness,” in Proceedings of the 2004
ACM Workshop on Visualization and Data Mining for Computer Security,
pp. 65–72. Washington DC, USA: ACM, New York, NY, USA, 2004.
[19] McPherson, J., K.-L. Ma, P. Krystosk, T. Bartoletti, and M. Christensen.
“Portvis: A tool for port-based detection of security events,’ in Proceedings
of the 2004 ACM Workshop on Visualization and Data Mining for Computer
Security, pp. 73–81. Washington DC, USA: ACM New York, NY, USA,
2004.
[20] Yin, X., W. Yurcik, M. Treaster, Y. Li, and K. Lakkaraju. “VisFlowConnect:
Netflow visualizations of link relationships for security situational awareness,”
294 Data security in cloud computing

in Proceedings of the 2004 ACM Workshop on Visualization and Data Mining

for Computer Security, pp. 26–34. Washington DC, USA: ACM, 2004.
[21] Morrow, B. “BYOD security challenges: Control and protect your most
sensitive data.” Network Security 2012, no. 12 (2012): 5–8.
[22] Ren, K., C. Wang, and Q. Wang. “Security challenges for the public cloud.”
IEEE Internet Computing 16, no. 1 (2012): 69–73.
[23] Popović, K., and Ž. Hocenski. “Cloud computing security issues and chal-
lenges,” in MIPRO, 2010 Proceedings of the 33rd International Convention,
pp. 344–349. Opatija, Croatia: IEEE, 2010.
[24] Rong, C., S. T. Nguyen, and M. G. Jaatun. “Beyond lightning: A survey on
security challenges in cloud computing.” Computers & Electrical Engineering
39, no. 1 (2013): 47–54.
[25] Armbrust, M., A. Fox, R. Griffith, et al. “A view of cloud computing.”
Communications of the ACM 53, no. 4 (2010): 50–58.
[26] Plaza, B. “Google Analytics for measuring website performance.” Tourism
Management 32, no. 3 (2011): 477–481.
[27] Agrawal, R., A. Kadadi, X. Dai, and F. Andres. “Challenges and opportunities
with big data visualization,” in Proceedings of the Seventh International
Conference on Management of Computational and Collective Intelligence in
Digital EcoSystems, pp. 169–173. Caraguatatuba, Brazil: ACM New York,
NY, USA, 2015.
[28] Notices/INTERPOL expertise/Internet/Home – INTERPOL [WWW Doc-
ument], n.d. URL http://www.interpol.int/INTERPOL-expertise/Notices
(accessed 3.30.16).
[29] INTERPOL, 2015. International Notices System. INTERPOL, n.d.
Notices/INTERPOL expertise/Internet/Home – INTERPOL [WWW
Document]. INTERPOL Notices. URL http://www.interpol.int/INTERPOL-
expertise/Notices (accessed 3.28.16).
[30] Ren, K., W. Wang, and Q. Wang. “Security challenges for the public cloud.”
IEEE Internet Computing 16, no. 1 (2012): 69.
[31] Hussain, M., and H. Abdulsalam. “SECaaS: Security as a service for
cloud-based applications,” in Proceedings of the Second Kuwait Conference
on e-Services and e-Systems, p. 8. Kuwait City, Kuwait: ACM New York, NY,
USA, 2011.
[32] Delamore, B. and R. K. L. Ko, “Chapter 9 – Security as a service (SecaaS) –
An overview,” in The Cloud Security Ecosystem. Boston, MA: Syngress,
2015, pp. 187–203.
[33] Okuhara, M., T. Shiozaki, and T. Suzuki. “Security architecture for cloud com-
puting.” Fujitsu Scientific and Technical Journal 46, no. 4 (2010): 397–402.
[34] “Amazon QuickSight – Fast & Easy to Use Business Intelligence for Big
Data at 1/10th the Cost of Traditional Solutions – AWS Blog.” [Online].
Available: https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/aws/amazon-quicksight-fast-easy-
to-use- business-intelligence-for-big-data-at-110th-the-cost-of-traditional-
solutions/. [Accessed: 20-Mar-2017].
 Security visualization for cloud computing: an overview 295

[35] “Cloud Datalab – Interactive Data Insights Tool,” Google Cloud Plat-
form. [Online]. Available: https://cloud.google.com/datalab/. [Accessed:
20-Mar-2017].
[36] “Azure brings big data, analytics, and visualization capabilities to U.S. Gov-
ernment.” [Online]. Available: https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/blog/azure-
brings-big-data-analytics-and-visualization-capabilities-to-u-s-government /.
[Accessed: 20-Mar-2017].
[37] Garae, J., R. K. L. Ko, and S. Chaisiri, “UVisP: User-centric visualization of
data provenance with Gestalt principles,” in 2016 IEEE Trustcom/BigDataSE/
ISPA, Tianjin, China, August 23–26, 2016, 2016, pp. 1923–1930.
[38] “Bitnodes live map.” [Online]. Available: https://bitnodes.21.co/nodes/live-
map/. [Accessed: 20-Mar-2017].
[39] Stricot-Tarboton, S., S. Chaisiri, and R. K. L. Ko, “Taxonomy of man-in-the-
middle attacks on HTTPS,” in 2016 IEEE Trustcom/BigDataSE/ISPA, Tianjin,
China, August 23–26, 2016, 2016, pp. 527–534.
[40] Krasser, S., G. Conti, J. Grizzard, J. Gribschaw, and H. Owen. “Real-time and
forensic network data analysis using animated and coordinated visualization,”
in Proceedings from the Sixth Annual IEEE SMC Information Assurance
Workshop, pp. 42–49. IEEE, 2005.
This page intentionally left blank
 Index

access control layer (ACL) 144 Artificial Intelligence (AI) planning

Access Manager 53 problem 269
Access Requester 53–4 attack, defined 68
Access Request Processor module 53–5 attack-resistant trust management
accountability, defined 233 scheme (ART) 186
acknowledgment (ack) packet 72–5, 77 auditor 74–5, 84
Active Auditing Control (AAC) 122, audits and certifications 234–5
134 Azure cloud 138
active data cube (ADCu) 119, 128–9,
145–6 B2B International 89
active data protection unit (ADPu) 129 Baker & McKenzie’s Global Privacy
active provenance collection 265 Handbook 253
application reporting 266–7 Bayesian inference 184
multiple system coordination points BeyondCorp 156
observation 267–8 binding corporate rules (BCRs)
operating system observation 265–6 237
overhead costs 268 Bin Encoding 89–90, 94, 96, 107
actors in cloud computing 3 distributed index system model for
adequacy decisions 235–6 97–8
AEGIS 94 personal user system model for 95
AH-controller communication 162, 164 Bitcoin visualization 288–9
Amazon EC2 138, 199, 208, 211 Bluespec System Verilog 78
Amazon Web Services 7, 106, 281 bluestein 29
Amdahl’s law 30 BluesteinFFT() function 30, 35–6
Anchor nodes 183–184 BluesteinInit() function 30, 35–6
Apple v. FBI 251 Brakerski, Gentry, and Vaikuntanathan
application binding (AppB) 167 (BGV) scheme 27–8
application programmer interfaces Bring-Your-Own-Device (BYOD) 152,
(APIs) 21, 267 156
arbitrary computation 99 built-in spell checking 96
addition 103–4 business objectives, contrasting 5
conditional 105
distributed NAND gate 101–3 Cache Allocation Technology (CAT)
multiplication 104–5 212
proof-of-concept addition and CACHEBAR 211
multiplication 106–7 Caesar cipher 90
298 Data security in cloud computing

CallForFire 19–22, 31, 33–4 Compute Unified Device Architecture

operational workflow 32 (CUDA) 30
performance 37 CONFIDANT (Cooperation Of Nodes,
CallForFire computation overhead Fairness In Dynamic Ad-hoc
37–8 NeTworks) 183
transmission and storage overhead Controller Area Network (CAN) bus
38 175, 178
CAN with Flexible Data Rate cost of IT security 151
(CAN-FD) 175 Court of Justice of the European Union
certificate authority (CA) 155 (CJEU) 248, 250–2
channel attacks, types of 205 covert-channel attacks 205–6
covert-channel attacks 205–6 cross-cutting issues 12–13
side-channel attacks 206 cryptographic keys 167, 202
classification of data security issues in cryptography 6, 89, 110, 182, 201
cloud computing 8 Ctxt module 29
cross-cutting issues 12–13 CUDA overhead 30
data at rest 9–10 custom hardware processors 94
data in transit 11–12 cyber capability 245
data in use 10–11 Cyber-Physical Systems (CPS) 172
ClientEnc(D, KUi ) 58 cyber resilience 245
Client Management Engine 22–4
Client Management Service 22–5 data-at-rest (DAR) 198–9
client-to-gateway SDP configuration data center TEE (dcTEE) 67
159 data-centric view of cloud security 1
cloud actors, duties and responsibilities classification of data security issues
of 228–35 in cloud computing 8
Cloud-based Privacy-aware Role Based cross-cutting issues 12–13
Access Control (CPRBAC) 122, data at rest 9–10
128, 132, 134, 139, 145 data in transit 11–12
cloud client 225–7 data in use 10–11
cloud interfaces 133 definitions and terminology 2–4
Cloud Management Engine 24–5 need for new methods 4
Cloud Security Alliance (CSA) 20, 66 cryptography 6
cloud service models 4 data provenance 7
cloud service partners 2 privacy and security laws and
cloud service provider (CSP) 2, 12, regulations 7–8
118–19, 125, 127, 130, 133, data controller 224–32
136, 139, 221, 225–7 data core protection component 130–1
Cloud Storage Service 22, 24–5, 33, 39 data flows and appropriate safeguards
cloud users access and use data 3 235
cluster-based hierarchical trust adequacy decisions 235–6
management 184 appropriate safeguards, alternative
CModulus 29 ways for data transfers by 236–8
Computation-as-a-Service (CaaS) 66, data-in-motion (DIM) 199
177 data-in-use (DIU) 199–200
 Index 299

data leakage attack techniques 197 availability 231

core technology vulnerabilities in confidentiality 232
200 data integrity 231–2
cryptography 201 intervenability 233
virtualisation technology (VT) isolation 232–3
200–1 IT accountability 233–4
web technology 200 portability 233
data state and vulnerabilities 198 data protection and mobility
data-at-rest 198–9 management for cloud 117
data-in-motion 199 discussion 145–6
data-in-use 199–200 security mechanisms for
mitigation countermeasures 210 data-in-transit 124
analysis or profile-based detection binding user and data location
212–13 126–7
application level 211 data mobility based on location
hardware level 211–12 register database 127
OS level 211
data-mobility-based policy and
side and covert channel attack
encryption mechanisms 125–6
classification 201
geographic location-based
channel attacks, types of 205–6
mechanisms 125
generic attack model 207–10
protecting cloud data using trusted
leakage, source of 202–5
third-party technologies 127
targeted data types 202
trust-oriented data protection
techniques 207
framework 127
Data Location Assurance Solution
attack test and security analysis
(DLAS) 125, 127
144
data mobility 119
components of 120 direct access and intrusion attacks
data location management 121 145
data verification 120 evaluation 139
scenarios 121–4 experiment setup 138–9
data-mobility-based policy and implementation 134–7
encryption mechanisms 125–6 mobility management model
data mobility management (DMM) 129–33
model 119, 127, 131, 143 processing data-moving case tests
data-moving cases test among different 139–44
cloud 141–4 TDFS external attacks 145
data-moving test for ADCu and normal trust-oriented data protection
files 139–41 framework 133–4
data owner 2–3, 130 data protection directive 95/46/EC 223
data-policy binding mechanism 126 data protection impact assessments
data processor 224–7 (DPIAs) 234
data protection and data security, data provenance 7, 261
technical and organisational acquiring data provenance from cloud
measures of 230 265
300 Data security in cloud computing

active provenance collection Dropbox 202, 269

265–8 DTM2 185
reconstructing provenance
268–70 e-cash techniques 187
application of 261 ejection address checker (EAC) 71–2,
to data security 262–3 77–8
correctness of 271 Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2) 245
definition of 261–2 electrical vehicles (EVs) 174
future challenges 270–1 Electronic Control Units (ECUs) 178
log files 263–5 encoding 90–2
outside of cloud 271 encrypted data
scope of discussion 263 operations on 26–7
Data Provenance as a Security retrieval of 25–6
Visualization Service storage of 25
(DPaaSVS) 277, 279, 287 encrypted domain rendering 47–8
data provenance software 7 EncryptedArray 29
data-use controls (DUCs) 126 energy efficient collaborative spectrum
deadlock 69 sensing (EE-CSS) protocol 185
Decisional Diffie-Hellman (DDH) ENISA (the European Union Agency
assumption 60 for Network and Information
Dedicated Short Range Security) 220
Communications (DSRC) 174 Enterprise Service Bus (ESB) 267
Defense Advanced Research Projects EU data protection law, extra-territorial
Agency (DARPA) 38 effect of 221–2
delay tolerant networks (DTNs) 184 EU legal framework on data protection
Dempster–Shafer theory (DST) 184 222
Denial of Service (DoS) attacks 231 Data Protection Directive 95/46/EC
Department of the Prime Minister and 223
Cabinet (DPMC) 244 general data protection regulation
destination checker (DC) 72–3 223–4
destination Port ID 68 European Data Protection Supervisor
device validation (DV) 161, 167 (EDPS) 225, 230–1, 236
direct observation: see first-hand Exclusive-OR (XOR) 101
observation executable segment (ES) 128
directory enabled networking (DEN) extra-territorial effect 220–2
155–6
distributed NAND gate 101 false positives 96
maintaining state 101–2 Faraday Memaker memory compiler 81
operation 101 field programmable gate array (FPGA)
reduction 102–3 39, 66
distribution 92–4 files 202
DLA Piper 252–3 Fire Direction Center (FDC) 31
Double-Chinese Remainder Theorem firewalls 153–4
(Double-CRT) representation of Firing Unit (FU) 31
polynomials 26 first-hand observation 182–3
 Index 301

FlexRay 176 HElib parameters 29, 34

Flush+Flush (FF) technique 207 HE Processing Engine 23–4
Flush+Reload (FR) technique 207 Hidden Markov Model (HMM) 199
Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court high-performance computing (HPC)
(FISC) 246–7 device 30, 66
ForensicTMO 291–2 High-Value Target (HVT) 31
Forrester Global Heat Map 253 homomorphic encryption 27
Forward Observer (FO) 31 Brakerski, Gentry, and
FRagmenting Individual Bits (FRIBs) Vaikuntanathan (BGV) scheme
89–90, 99 27–8
fully homomorphic encryption (FHE) Homomorphic Encryption library
11, 27, 29, 40, 91–2 (HElib) 28–30, 34
honest secondary users (HSUs) 185
gaps and misalignments 8 HOTP protocol 161
General Data Protection Regulation hypervisor 24, 33, 200, 204
(GDPR) 8, 220–6, 235–9, 249 HyperWall 68
General Motors 179
general personal data processing IH–AH protocol 165–6
principles 228 IH-controller protocol 164–5
purpose specification and limitation Image User 51–3, 63
228–9 IndexSet/IndexMap 29
responsibility and accountability in indirect observation: see second-hand
cloud 229–30 observation
storage limitation 229 Information Technology and Innovation
transparency 228 Foundation (ITIF) 247
General Purpose computing on Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) 3–4,
Graphics Processing Units 176
(GPGPUs) 29–30 Init(1k ) 57–8
geographic location-based mechanisms Insider, new type of 5
125 Intelligent Transportation System (ITS)
geolocation 186–7 173
globally located servers 2 intermediate manager (IM) 82–3
Google App Engine 281 International Data Protection
Google cloud message (GCM) 138 Legislation Matrix 253
Google Cloud Platform 106 international standards 110
Google Drive 202 Internet infrastructure, traditional 152
Google Spain v. AEPD and Mario Internet of Things (IoT) 110, 181, 244
Costeja Gonzålez 250 Internet Protocol 39, 178
graphics processing unit (GPU) 66 INTERPOL’s Notice System 283
GPU-based acceleration of BGV intra-vehicle communication 175–6
FHE 29–30 Intrusion Detection System (IDS) 205
GPU-based parallelisation 19, 34 in-vehicular communication
HElib GPU parallelisation 36–7 technologies 175
HElib profiling 34–6 iPhone Operating System (iOS) 251
grid zone designator (GZD) 31 ISO/IEC 27018:2014 110
302 Data security in cloud computing

IT accountability 232–3 technical and organisational

IT automation tools 160 measures of data protection and
data security 230
JSON array 162–3, 165 EU legal framework on data
protection 222
data protection directive 95/46/EC
Kerckhoffs’s principle 91
223
Kernel Same Page (KSP) 200
general data protection regulation
KeyGen(MSK, i) 58
223–4
Key Management Authority (KMA) 51
sub-contractors 226
KeySwitching 29
LevelDB 34
livelock 69
lattice-based approach 21 Local Interconnect Network (LIN) bus
lattice-based encryption 92 175–6
leakage, source of 202 location register database, data mobility
CPU architecture 203 based on 127
CPU power consumption 204 location registration database (LRD)
page sharing 204 119, 130–1, 137
shared library 204–5 location service provider (LSP) 139
timing 203–4 log files 263–5
legal alignment, work in lossy encoding techniques 94, 96
Baker & McKenzie’s Global Privacy
Handbook 253 malicious router 71, 74, 83
DLA Piper 252–3 Man-in-the-Middle-Attack (MITMA)
Forrester Global Heat Map 253 investigation tool 291
International Data Protection MapReduce programming model 66
Legislation Matrix 253 Math layer 29
legal requirements, sorting-out 219 max-count value 73–4
cloud client and cloud service Media-Oriented Systems Transport
provider 225–6 (MOST) 176
data controller 224 Mellanox technologies 66
data flows and appropriate safeguards Message Digest 5 (MD5) 262
235 Microsoft Azure 7, 106, 281, 286
adequacy decisions 235–6 Military Grid Reference System
alternative ways for data transfers (MGRS) 31
by means of appropriate misalignments, gaps and 8
safeguards 236–8 misrouting attack 69
data processor 224 countermeasure for 81
duties and responsibilities of cloud intermediate manager 83
actors 228 local monitoring module 82–3
audits and certifications 234–5 simulation and synthesis results 84
data protection impact assessments mitigation countermeasures 210
(DPIAs) 234 analysis or profile-based detection
general personal data processing 212–13
principles 228 application level 211
 Index 303

hardware level 211–12 NAND gate full-adder 103

OS level 211 National Institute of Standard and
mobile ad-hoc networks (MANETs) Technology (NIST) 3
173, 184 National Security Agency (NSA) leaks
mobility management model 120, 243
129–33 NeCTAR cloud 138
mobility services (MSs) 118, 131, Negative-AND (NAND) 99
143–4 negligible function 59
modern intra-vehicle data networks and Network-as-a-Service (NaaS) 177
the cloud 178–80 network interface (NI) 67
multifactor authentication (MFA) 159, network-on-chip (NoC) 65–8
161 Network Time Protocol 129
multi-party computation (MPC) 11, new cloud, description of 120
40, 92 Nimbostratus 20
multiprocessor system-on-chip Nomad framework 19–20, 22
(MPSoC) for processing CallForFire 31
data 65 operational workflow 32
current approaches to secure MPSoC Client Management Service 23–4
cloud platforms 67–8 Cloud Storage Service 24
future research directions 84 experiments 34
intellectual property (IP) modules 66 CallForFire performance 37–8
performance of GPU-based
misrouting attack, countermeasure
parallelisation 34–7
for 81
GPU-based acceleration of BGV
intermediate manager 83
FHE 29–30
local monitoring module 82–3
high-level architecture 23f
simulation and synthesis
homomorphic encryption
results 84
background 27
processing elements (PEs) in 66 BGV scheme 27–8
threat model 68 HElib 28–9
examples of router attack 70–1 implementation 33–4
malicious effects of router attack operational overview 24
69 operations on encrypted data 26–7
router attack description 68–9 retrieval of encrypted data 25–6
unauthorized access attack, storage of encrypted data 25
countermeasure for 71 related work 38–9
ejection address checker (EAC) NSA leaks 246–7
77–8 Number Theory Library (NTL) code 30
restart monitor 75–7 NumbTh 29
runtime monitor 72–5 NVIDIA Tesla 66
simulation and synthesis results NVM 78, 81
78–81
mutual transport layer security (mTLS) Observer Target Line (OTL) 31
155, 161, 167 old cloud 120, 122, 124, 132, 142
mux ID 165 Oldsmobile Toronado models 179
304 Data security in cloud computing

On-Board Diagnostics (OBD-II) tools 3D images 48

179–80 encrypted domain rendering 47–8
onboarding 160 volume ray-casting 48–50
on-board prognostics systems 172 security analysis 59–61
1-bit register 82–3 solution details 54
one-time password (OTP) 160–1 composition 57
Open Provenance Model (OPM) 262, data preparation 54–6
265 ray-dependent rendering 56–7
OpenSSL 205, 211–12 system model 50
operating system (OS) 3–4, 7, 66, 96, Image User 51
110, 120, 203, 265–6 Key Management Authority
original cloud 118–24, 127, 130–2, (KMA) 51
135–46 Private Cloud Server 51
Public Cloud Server 51
page sharing 199–200, 204 threat model 51–2
Paillier cryptosystem 45–9, 52, 54, Volume Outsourcer 50–1
56–7, 61, 63 pre-ray-projection rendering operations
PAlgebra 29 49, 52
PAlgebraMod 29 Prime+Probe (PP) technique 207
Parked Vehicle Assistance (PVA) 174 PRISM program 246–7
partially homomorphic encryption privacy and security laws and
(PHE) 91–2 regulations 7
Path Manager 183 different expectations on technology
Pedestrian Countdown Signals (PCS) and control 8
175 gaps and misalignments 8
perimeter, definition of 5 privacy for TCPS 186–7
perimeter security 12, 151–2, 157, 168 Privacy Shield 248–9
personal data processing, cloud Private Cloud Server 46–7, 51–2, 54–5,
computing and: see legal 57, 62–3
requirements, sorting-out private processing, distributing encoded
Personally Identifiable Information data for 89
(PII) 110 arbitrary computation 99–107
personal user system model for Bin distributed encoding and related work
Encoding 95 90–4
Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) 4, 7, 176, little computational and network
201 overhead 110–11
post-classification volume ray-casting security analysis 107–10
47–8, 61, 63 string searching 94–9
pre-classification volume ray-casting, Probabilistic Polynomial Time (PPT)
preserving privacy in 45 algorithm 59
construction details 57–9 PROgramming Computation on
implementation and experiment EncryptEd Data (PROCEED)
61–3 38
proposed approach 52–4 proxy servers 154
related work and background 47 pseudorandom function 59–60
 Index 305

Public Cloud Server 51–7, 61–3 SeCloud project 219

public key infrastructure (PKI) 155 secondary user base station (SUBS)
185
Quality of Security Service (QoSS) 67 secondhand information 184
quantum computing 92 second-hand observation 183
Secure Shell 199
Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) security analysis 47, 59, 107–10, 144
technology 187 Security-as-a-Service (SECaaS) model
ray-dependent rendering 56–7 66–7, 286
Read Time Stamp Counter (RDTSC) security mechanisms for data-in-transit
203–4 124
reconstructing provenance 268–70 binding user and data location 126–7
recordable mobility data (RMD) 130, data-mobility-based policy and
134 encryption mechanisms 125–6
reduction server 102–3, 105–6 geographic location-based
REFRESH procedure 27 mechanisms 125
remote-access VPN 154 location register database, data
remote procedure call (RPC) protocol mobility based on 127
33 protecting cloud data using trusted
Rendering Finisher module 54 third-party technologies 127
Reputation System 183 security visualization 277
restart monitor 75–8, 81 Data Provenance as a Security
ReTrust 184 Visualization Service
Revoke(i) 59 (DPaaSVS) 277, 286–7
Rich Execution Environments (REEs) for data security 280–1
65, 67–8 intelligence framework 285
RightScale 246 intelligence model 288
“right to be forgotten” concept 8, 244, Bitcoin visualization 288–9
250, 252 forensicTMO 291–2
ring learning with errors threat intelligence visualization
(RLWEs)-based approach 21, 290
27, 39 need for 281–2
roadside units (RSUs) 172, 174, 176–7, Security Visualization as a Cloud
180, 182, 187 Service (SVaaCS) 277, 285–6
router attack 65–6 standardization model
description 68–9 effective approaches 282–3
examples of 69–71 security visualization standard
malicious effects of 69 (SCeeL-VisT) 283–5
Routing Function 68 Sensing-as-a-Service (S2 aaS) 177
runtime monitor 71–5, 77–81, 84 ServerPreDec(E (D), KSj ) 58–9
ServerReEnc(E∗i (D), KSi ) 58
Safe Harbor Agreement 247 ServerScalMul(c, E (D)) 58
Schrems v. Data Protection ServerSum(E (D1 ), E (D2 )) 58
Commissioner 250 service level agreement (SLA) 8, 12,
SEALTHMEM 212 118–19, 130, 133, 145, 226
306 Data security in cloud computing

shared library 204–5, 211 removing special characters 96

Shortest Vector Problem (SVP) 27 results for searching over a document
side-channel attacks 94, 206 98–9
Single Chip Cloud (SCC) 66 structured data 128
single packet authentication scheme sub-contractors 226–9, 233, 238–9
160–1 substitution cipher 90–1
single packet authorization 167 supervisor 120–4, 129–31, 136–7
site-to-site VPN 154 Synopsys Design Compiler 81, 84
SkyDrive 202
soft law 227, 237 technology and control, different
Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) 4, 7, 176, expectations on 8
199 Terra 68
software-defined perimeter (SDP) 12, third-party auditors (TPAs) 127
151 third-party technologies 124
architecture 157–8 protecting cloud data using 127
background and related work 152 threat intelligence visualization 290
firewalls 153–4 threat model 51–2, 68, 90
public key infrastructure (PKI) 3DCrypt 46–7, 52–4, 62
155 encryption and decryption processes
SDP-like solutions 155–6 using 55
transport layer security (TLS) 155 TILE-Gx72 66
virtual private network (VPN) Time+Evict (TE) technique 207
154–5 Time Division Multiple Access
configurations 158 (TDMA) 176
overview 156 Time Stamp 129, 134–6
protocol 160 timing (module) 29
AH-controller protocol 162–4 traditional collaborative spectrum
device validation 161 sensing (T-CSS) protocol 185
IH–AH protocol 165–6 Traffic Estimation and Prediction
IH-controller protocol 164–5 System (TrEPS) 172
single packet authentication 160–1 Transmission Control Protocol (TCP)
SDP security 166–7 281
workflow 158–60 transparency 228
software patching 109 Transparent Page Sharing (TPS) 204
Spence’s Job Market model 185 Transportation (Vehicular) Clouds 173
standard contractual clauses (SCCs) Transportation Cloud Computing (TCC)
237 171–3, 176–8
“stateful” firewalls 153 Transportation Cyber-Physical Systems
Storage-as-a-Service (StaaS) 177–8 (TCPS) 171
Store Requester 53 attack surfaces 178
string searching 91, 94–9 of future cloud-based V2X
approximate 96 transportation networks 180–1
building the search index 96–7 modern intra-vehicle data
distributed index 97–8 networks and the cloud 178–80
false positives 96 intra-vehicle communication 175–6
 Index 307

security mechanisms 181 unauthorized access attack

privacy for TCPS 186–7 countermeasure for 71
trust management 182–6 ejection address checker (EAC)
transportation cloud computing 77–8
176–8 restart monitor 75–7
vehicle-to-everything communication runtime monitor 72–5
173–5 simulation and synthesis results
vehicular and transportation networks 78–81
173 effects of 69
transport layer security (TLS) protocol Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) 30
155 unstructured data 128
Triggerable Data File Structure (TDFS) UserDec(Ej∗ (D), KUj ) 59
120–1, 128, 139, 142–3
Trusted Execution Environments vehicle-to-everything (V2X)
(TEEs) 65 communication 173–5, 180–1
Trusted Platform Module 7 Vehicle-to-Grid (V2G) Communication
trusted security management 174
component 130, 132 Vehicle-to-Infrastructure (V2I)
trust management 181 Communication 174
basic principles 182–3 Vehicle-to-Pedestrian (V2P)
for TCPS 185–6 Communication 174–5
for wireless networks 183–5 Vehicle-to-Vehicle (V2V)
trust-oriented data protection Communication 174
framework 127, 133–4 Vehicular ad-hoc Networks (VANETs)
evaluation and results 138 173, 186
attack test and security analysis VENOM 20
144 Viaccess-Orca 67
direct access and intrusion attacks Video Surveillance 178
145 virtualisation technology (VT) 200–1
evaluation 139 virtualization 11
experiment setup 138–9 virtual machines (VM) 11–12, 20–5,
processing data-moving case tests 68, 125, 178, 200
139–44 virtual private network (VPN) 154–5
TDFS external attacks 145 Visible Light Communication (VLC)
implementation 134 174
data mobility management visited cloud 119–22, 124, 127, 131–2,
workflows 136–7 143–6
data structure design 134 visitor location register database
location register database design (VLRD) 131–2, 135–6
135–6 VM Monitor 24
mobility management model 129–33 Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) 39
TrustZone Technology 67 Volume Outsourcer 50–3, 55, 62
volume ray-casting 48–50
unattended wireless sensor networks Volume Renderer 54
(UWSNs) 185 voxels 48, 62
308 Data security in cloud computing

Waikato Data Privacy Matrix (WDPM) NSA leaks 246–7

243 PRISM program 246–7
cloud computing 245–6 proposed solution 253–4
general data protection regulation data privacy matrix road map 254
(GDPR) 249 Safe Harbor to Privacy Shield 247–9
justification 244–5 trans-national agreements 247
legal alignment, related work in vision 255
Baker & McKenzie’s Global web technology 199–201
Privacy Handbook 253 Wireless Access in Vehicular
DLA Piper 252–3 Environment (WAVE) 174
Forrester Global Heat Map 253 wireless networks 178, 182
International Data Protection trust management for 183–5
Legislation Matrix 253
legal cases 250 Xen hypervisor 33
Apple v. FBI 251 XILINX MPSoCs 66
Google Spain v. AEPD and Mario XY/YX routing 82
Costeja Gonzålez 250
“right to be forgotten” concept zero visibility 166–7
252 Zynq UltraScale+MPSoCs 66
Schrems v. Data Protection
Commissioner 250