A Survey on Data Storage Security in Mobile Cloud Computing Environment

Cloud computing is a utility computing which provides computing, networking, storage space as a service to users through Internet. Users can automatically provision and de-provision resources on demand, paying charges for the capacity they use. Mobile cloud computing combines the power of mobile with cloud computing thus providing the user with unlimited pool of resource from cloud without hampering mobility of user. A mobile user storing data on the cloud can be read by the cloud service provider or hacked by man-in-middle attack, thus affecting user privacy and integrity. So data stored on the cloud should be encrypted, disallowing unauthorized user to access stored data. Mobile devices are resource constrained since they are battery powered, have less processing power and have less storage space. Any algorithm or technique used for securing mobile users data should take into account above constraints for effective uses of cloud for mobile users. In this paper we have provided a survey of different techniques for secure storage of mobile users data in the cloud, their merits and demerits for mobile environment.