Parallel Proxy Re-Encryption Workload Distribution for Efficient Big Data Sharing in Cloud Computing

Cloud computing enables users and organizations to conveniently store and share data in large volumes and to enjoy on-demand services. Security and the protection of big data sharing from various attacks is the most challenging issue. Proxy re-encryption (PRE) is an effective method to improve the security of data sharing in the cloud environment. However, in PRE schemes, offloading big data for re-encryption will impose a heavy computational burden on the cloud proxy server, resulting in an increased computation delay and response time for the users. In this paper, we propose a novel parallel PRE workload distribution scheme to dynamically route the big data re-encryption process into the fog of the network. Moreover, this paper proposes a dynamic load balancing technique to avoid an excessive workload for the fog nodes. It also uses lightweight asymmetric cryptography to provide end-to-end security for the big data sharing between users. Within the proposed scheme, the offloading overhead on the centralized cloud server is effectively mitigated. Meanwhile, the processing delay incurred by the big data re-encryption process is efficiently improved.