Efficient two-stage cryptography scheme for secure distributed data storage in cloud computing

Abstract

Cloud computing environment requires secure access for data from the cloud server, small execution time, and low time complexity. Existing traditional cryptography algorithms are not suitable for cloud storage. In this paper, an efficient two-stage cryptography scheme is proposed to access and store data into cloud safely. It comprises both user authentication and encryption processes. First, a two-factor authentication scheme one-time password is proposed. It overcomes the weaknesses in the existing authentication schemes. The proposed authentication method does not require specific extra hardware or additional processing time to identity the user. Second, the plaintext is divided into two parts which are encrypted separately using a unique key for each. This division increases the security of the proposed scheme and in addition decreases the encryption time. The keys are generated using logistic chaos model theory. Chaos equation generates different values of keys which are very sensitive to initial condition and control parameter values entered by the user. This scheme achieves high-security level by introducing different security processes with different stages. The simulation results demonstrate that the proposed scheme reduces the size of the ciphertext and both encryption and decryption times than competing schemes without adding any complexity.