Simplified FADE with sharing feature (SFADE+): A overlay approach for cloud storage system

Security has become one of the primary concerns, particularly when it comes to cloud computing where data is stored and accessed over the internet from a third party storage. Ensuring that data is accessible to the rightful individual as well as deletion of the data from the third party storage are vital. It is usual for the third party service to create copies of the uploaded data for reliability, as a result of which deleting the data the owner uploaded does not guarantee the inexistence of the data from the cloud. A method called File Assured Deletion or FADE has been introduced to handle both the accessibility and deletion issue. By encrypting the outsourced data, it guarantees the privacy and integrity of it while associating data with a policy assures its deletion upon policy revocation. Although FADE is a consistent and coherent cloud overlay system designed to work on top of present day cloud infrastructure, it involves a third party key manager which needs to be considered trusted in order for the system to work. Simplified File Assured Deletion or SFADE takes the principals of the previous approach and modifies it to create an easier to implement and friendlier system for the ordinary users, by making it independent of a key manager. FADE and SFADE both lacks sharing feature i.e. way for the data owner to share the outsourced data in a secure way with other users chosen by data owner. This paper discusses the prospect and proposes technique to implement data sharing while adhering to the policy based encryption in FADE and SFADE.