Framework for Assessing Cloud Trustworthiness

When applications or data reside in a public cloud, trustworthiness can be compromised due to lack of control over the underlying infrastructure. Most public cloud infrastructures cannot be instrumented or modified to independently verify data integrity. To support verifiable access to applications and data residing in cloud infrastructures, we are developing a framework that treats the cloud as a black box and assesses its trustworthiness from the trusted cloud client. Our solution generates and performs diagnostic tests to assess the trustworthiness of cloud-based applications. Diagnostic tests for data objects stored in the cloud are based on a separate cryptographic hash-based check that verifies their data integrity.