Cloud data security and integrity protection model based on distributed virtual machine agents

Cloud computing has been popular as the new IT infrastructure, because it is able to provide convenient and low-cost network computing and storage service. However, duo to separation of ownership and control rights, cloud users' data bring about many security issues, including data leakage and data tampering. Now, the security and integrity of cloud data usually depend on a trusted third party auditors. Although the introduction of a third-party mechanism can reduce the cost of computing and communication costs in the client, the mechanism increases the threat of data leakage to a third party and we will be unable to avoid the conspiracy threat of cloud service providers and third-party mechanism. In this paper, we propose the model of distributed virtual machine agent, and the model provides a unique and credible monitoring of virtual machines for each user in the cloud, so that even the sole administrator of the cloud server monitoring mechanism cannot bypass it and obtain protected sensitive data, preventing data from being tampered. In addition, based on virtual machine agent auditing data, we utilize a data integrity protocol to make sure the users' data availability and integrity. Security analysis proves that the protocol can defend three kinds of attack from cloud service provider in our security model.