Obfuscation as a Security Measure in Cloud Computing

Abstract: Encryption being a powerful tool for data security fails in the case of cloud computing which also being a very beneficial technology has a lot of issues, biggest of which is privacy as information is stored on third party resources which can be a danger to it and thus cannot be stored in its natural form. Cloud providers offer resources which clients can use to process their data but encryption makes this data unusable on the provider�s side thus giving the client only a single choice i.e. either security of data or benefits of cloud computing and putting them in a dilemma. This is the main reason clients shy away from using this great technology. In this paper it is discussed how obfuscation which is semi-encrypting of data so that it does not loose its usable form while reducing the privacy risk, is an optimal security measure for cloud computing. Based on a through review of various obfuscation techniques, best technique has been chosen and an algorithm for obfuscation has been proposed in this paper which uses the same technique.

Keywords: Obfuscation, Encryption, Cloud, Security, Privacy.