Policing as a Service in the Cloud (Extended)

Abstract

Security and privacy are fundamental concerns in cloud computing both in terms of legal complications and user trust. Cloud computing is a new computing paradigm, aiming to provide reliable, customized, and guaranteed computing dynamic environment for end users. However, the existing security and privacy issues in the cloud still present a strong barrier for users to adopt cloud computing solutions. This paper investigates the security and privacy challenges in cloud computing in order to explore methods that improve the users’ trust in the adaptation of the cloud. Policing as a Service can be offered by the cloud providers with the intention of empowering users to monitor and guard their assets in the cloud. This service is beneficial both to the cloud providers and the users. However, at first, the cloud providers may only be able to offer basic auditing services due to undeveloped tools and applications. Similar to other services delivered in the cloud, users can purchase this service to gain some control over their data. The subservices of the proposed service can be Privacy as a Service and Forensics as a Service. These services give users a sense of transparency and control over their data in the cloud while better security and privacy safeguards are sought.