An efficient data integrity auditing protocol for cloud computing

Cloud data storage has brought a revolution in Information Technology (IT) sector with its inherent benefits like ease of use, cost efficiency, location independence etc. By outsourcing data on cloud servers, users can reduce the hardware expenditures and can simplify the data management process. A Cloud Service Provider (CSP) is responsible for offering secure data storage services. However, using these services in a secured manner and ensuring data integrity in these remote cloud servers remains to be an issue for the clients. In this paper, we propose an efficient approach for data integrity auditing in cloud computing. The objective of proposed protocol is to minimize the computational complexity of client during system setup phase of the auditing protocol. Based on the properties of bilinear pairings, the proposed protocol is publicly verifiable and supports dynamic operations on data. The security of proposed protocol relies on the stability of Computational Diffie Hellman Problem (CDHP) in a Random Oracle Model (ROM). Finally, the performance of proposed protocol has been evaluated by implementing a prototype of the protocol and conducting experiments. The results obtained have been compared with state-of-the-art protocols and demonstrates the high efficiency and adaptability of proposed protocol by clients with limited resources. (C) 2020 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.