Towards Secure Risk-Adaptable Access Control in Cloud Computing

Abstract

The emergence of pervasive cloud computing has supported the transition of physical data and machine into virtualization environment. However, security threat and privacy have been identified as a challenge to support the widespread adoption of cloud among user. Moreover, user awareness on the importance of cloud computing has increase the needs to safeguard the cloud by implementing access control that works on dynamic environment. Therefore, the emergence of Risk-Adaptable Access Control (RAdAC) as a flexible medium in handling exceptional access request is a great countermeasure to deal with security and privacy challenges. However, the rising problem in safeguarding users' privacy in RAdAC model has not been discussed in depth by other researcher. This paper explores the architecture of cloud computing and defines the existing solutions influencing the adoption of cloud among user. At the same time, the obscurity factor in protecting privacy of user is found within RAdAC framework. Similarly, the two-tier authentication scheme in RAdAC has been proposed in responding to security and privacy challenges as shown through informal security analysis.