Emerging Access Control Techniques in Cloud Computing: A Survey

Cloud computing is widely getting acceptance due to its low cost and shared computing capabilities. However trust, security and privacy are the major concerns in cloud environment. A systematic survey was done on various emerging access control mechanisms being employed in cloud environments. The existing access control mechanisms strive to achieve greater flexibility, scalability, dynamic support, security, and fine-grained access. Encryption based access control techniques able to achieve data security along with privacy protection. However they require additional key management infrastructure. Providing support to a continuously varying user dynamics and supporting a multi-user setting also getting importance. Protecting the data from cloud learning and forbidding the server accessing user access structure is effectively tackled at the cost of complexity and computational burden. Ensuring trust on the server side at the same time providing real user with required access are the major challenges in implementing a prominent access control. This paper analyses various access control mechanisms with pros and cons in cloud computing environment.