Safe Cloud: Secure and Usable Authentication Framework for Cloud Environment

Cloud computing an emerging computing model having its roots in grid and utility computing is gaining increasing attention of both the industry and laymen. The ready availability of storage, compute, and infrastructure services provides a potentially attractive option for business enterprises to process and store data without investing on computing infrastructure. The attractions of Cloud are accompanied by many concerns among which Data Security is the one that requires immediate attention. Strong user authentication mechanisms which prevent illegal access to Cloud services and resources are one of the core requirements to ensure secure access. This paper proposes a user authentication framework for Cloud which facilitates authentication by individual service providers as well as by a third party identity provider. The proposed two-factor authentication protocols uses password as the first factor and a Smart card or Mobile Phone as the second factor. The protocols are resistant to various known security attacks.