Multilayer Technique to Secure Data Transfer in Private Cloud for SaaS Applications

In recent times Cloud Computing[CC] has emanated as a substitute paradigm for hosting and providing services over the Internet. Software as a Service (Saas) is one among such services that deliver services to the end-users on pay-as-you-go manner. In spite of all its advantages, security always seems to be major drawback. For securing the users' data on the cloud, this paper proposes an application model for any SaaS application hosted on a private cloud environment. The application is divided into two micro-services, where the first one is Application Layer Firewall and second one is a secured application to login and send sensitive data. The application layer firewall checks for any malicious activity and prevents the intruder to access the features present in the application. Subsequently, a Hidden Markov Model layer is implemented which is a probability-based intrusion detection technique. The second micro-service uses Advanced Encryption Standard (AES) encryption algorithm to encrypt documents having sensitive data, which have to be transferred within the private cloud. Further security is provided by proposing a novel Video Steganography approach using the Least Significant Bit (LSB) technique. This paper gives a detailed structure of hiding the data using multiple levels of security. Thus, this paper provides a holistic approach to implement a high level of security in SaaS applications.