Cloud Cryptography in IT Infrastructure: A Comprehensive Review and Future Directions

Cloud computing has transformed the IT infrastructure by offering scalable, cost-effective, and on-demand services but brings with it enormous security challenges, mainly in safeguarding sensitive information. Cloud cryptography addresses these issues by using cryptographic techniques such as encryption, digital signatures, and key management for the protection of data confidentiality, integrity, and availability. The traditional approaches to cryptography have managed to function well in on-premise environments but do not perform well in the cloud environment, where concepts of multi-tenancy, distribution systems, and high-performance processing of real-time data create a need for more flexible and scalable solutions. Some of the emerging cryptographic techniques, including homomorphic encryption and quantum cryptography, have gained significant attention but find fewer practical applications in today's cloud infrastructures. This paper represents an overview of comprehensive analyses of the use of cryptographic methods in cloud computing environments with regard to their strengths and limitations. Different key management, performance trade-offs, and regulations such as GDPR and HIPAA are keenly analyzed in this study to identify the most critical gaps in existing cryptographic approaches. The paper thus also proposes future research directions that embrace improvement in scalability, efficiency, and practicality of solutions to make them more apt to meet security needs in dynamic environments of the cloud. This review, therefore, sheds light on the value that advanced cryptography has for the protection of improved cloud security-ensuring better protection and privacy for organizations making use of the services provided by the cloud.