An integrated state transition-Boolean logic model for security analysis in cloud computing

The hype over cloud computing cannot go unnoticed even as providers and users alike testify of the evident benefits. It also goes without saying that this approach to computing shares its own challenges the most echoed being security. Security concerns herein, birthed by the exposure of the cloud to different threats, continue to cast doubts on potential users and it's only befitting that such concerns are addressed. Users who entrust their data to the cloud want their data to be secured in the strongest terms possible. Once data leaves the user, the onus is on the cloud provider to provide the required security since data now lies within their perimeter of jurisdiction. But security requirements do change with time and this therefore calls for a continuous process of evaluating the security status of the cloud system. This paper proposes a model of analyzing the security status of the cloud system with regards confidentiality, integrity and availability. We employ state transitions of a conceptual finite state machine, Boolean algebra and logic to evaluate the various states of the system when a specified breach occurs. The scope of this paper is limited to user data on the cloud and not as it traverses the network between the user and the provider.