Secure Data Storage and Sharing Techniques for Data Protection in Cloud Environments: A Systematic Review, Analysis, and Future Directions

A large number of researchers, academia, government sectors, and business enterprises are adopting the cloud environment due to the least upfront capital investment, maximum scalability, and several other features of it. Despite the multiple features supported by the cloud environment, it also suffers several challenges. Data protection is the primary concern in the area of information security and cloud computing. Numerous solutions have been developed to address this challenge. However, there is a lack of comprehensive analysis among the existing solutions and a necessity emerges to explore, classify, and analyze the significant existing work for investigating the applicability of these solutions to meet the requirements. This article presents a comparative and systematic study, and in-depth analysis of leading techniques for secure sharing and protecting the data in the cloud environment. The discussion about each dedicated technique includes: functioning for protecting the data, potential and revolutionary solutions in the domain, the core and adequate information including workflow, achievements, scope, gaps, future directions, etc. about each solution. Furthermore, a comprehensive and comparative analysis of the discussed techniques is presented. Afterward, the applicability of the techniques is discussed as per the requirements and the research gaps along with future directions are reported in the field. The authors believe that this article's contribution will operate as a catalyst for the potential researchers to carry out the research work in the area.