DECENTRALISED ACCESS CONTROL WITH ANONYMOUS

AUTHENTICATION OF DATA STORED IN CLOUDS

Guide: Dr [Link]

[Link] Swaroop [Link] [Link] sai

CSE(AIML) CSE(AIML) CSE(AIML)
245321748126 245321748102 245321748074
Neil Gogte Institute of technology Neil Gogte Institute of technology Neil Gogte Institute of technology
OU OU OU
Hyderabad,India Hyderabad,India Hyderabad,India
vnvsaiswaroop@[Link] manchulaharshitha12@[Link] shivasaichillachilla@[Link]

Abstract: We propose a new decentralized access Much of the data stored in clouds is highly
control scheme for secure data storage in clouds, sensitive, for example, medical records and social
that supports anonymous authentication. In the networks. Security and privacy are thus very
proposed scheme, the cloud verifies the authenticity important issues in cloud computing. In one hand,
of the ser without knowing the user’s identity before the user should authenticate itself before initiating
storing data. Our scheme also has the added any transaction, and on the other hand, it must be
feature of access control in which only valid users ensured that the cloud does not tamper with the
are able to decrypt the stored information. The data that is outsourced. User privacy is also
scheme prevents replay attacks and supports required so that the cloud or other users do not
creation, modification, and reading data stored in know the identity of the user. The cloud can hold
the cloud. We also address user revocation. the user accountable for the data it outsources, and
Moreover, our authentication and access control likewise, the cloud is
scheme is decentralized and robust, unlike other itself accountable for the services it provides. The
access control schemes designed for clouds which validity of the user who stores the data is also
are centralized. The communication, computation, verified. Apart from the technical solutions to
and storage overheads are comparable to ensure security and privacy, there is also a need for
centralized approaches. law enforcement.
Recently, Wang et al. [2] addressed secure and
Keywords: Access control, Authentication, dependable cloud storage. Cloud servers prone to
Attribute-based Byzantine failure, where a storage server can fail in
signatures, Attribute-based encryption, Cloud arbitrary ways [2]. The cloud is also prone to data
storage. modification and server colluding attacks. In server
colluding attack, the adversary can compromise
storage servers, so that it can modify data files as
I. INTRODUCTION long as they are internally consistent. To provide
secure data storage, the data needs to be encrypted.
The increasing reliance on cloud computing has However, the data is often modified and this
highlighted the need for secure and privacy- dynamic property needs to be taken into account
preserving access control mechanisms. Several while designing efficient secure storage techniques.
researchers have contributed to this domain by
proposing innovative methodologies for
decentralized access control and anonymous
authentication.

II. LITERATURE SURVEY while ensuring that only authorized users access
the data. This approach enhances privacy, security,
With the rise of cloud computing, ensuring secure and scalability, making it ideal for applications
access control while maintaining user anonymity is handling sensitive data such as healthcare, finance,
crucial. This study proposes a decentralized access and enterprise storage.
control mechanism using cryptographic techniques
and attribute-based encryption (ABE) to regulate 1. Zhang, Y., Deng, R. H., & Liu, X. (2021).
data access without relying on a centralized Secure Data Sharing System for Cloud Storage.
authority. The system enables anonymous IEEE Transactions on Services Computing.
authentication, preventing unauthorized tracking
Zhang, Deng, and Liu present a secure data In this work, Liu, Xiao, and Tang leverage
sharing framework tailored for cloud storage blockchain technology, specifically smart contracts,
environments. Their system leverages fine-grained to implement decentralized access control for cloud
access control using attribute-based encryption storage. Their approach removes the reliance on
(ABE), which allows users to share data based on trusted third parties by enforcing data access
descriptive policies rather than identity. To ensure policies through transparent and immutable smart
both data confidentiality and user privacy, the contracts. The system supports automated auditing
authors incorporate advanced cryptographic and policy enforcement, improving trustworthiness
methods and rigorous security proofs. Their model and traceability in cloud interactions. This
supports scalable and efficient data access, making innovative integration of blockchain and cloud
it highly suitable for collaborative and enterprise- security offers a promising direction for building
level cloud services where security and flexibility trust in decentralized digital infrastructures.
are paramount.
5. Al-Bassam, M. (2021). A Secure and Privacy-
2. Sun, J., Zhang, J., Xiong, N., & Liu, Y. (2022). Preserving Cloud Storage Protocol. Journal of
Efficient Attribute-Based Data Sharing in Cloud. Network and Computer Applications.
Future Generation Computer Systems.
Al-Bassam proposes a cloud storage protocol that
Sun and colleagues focus on enhancing the prioritizes both data security and user privacy. The
efficiency of attribute-based data sharing protocol combines secure data outsourcing with
mechanisms in cloud systems. They propose an privacy-preserving authentication, allowing users
optimized attribute-based encryption scheme that to retain control over their data even when stored
significantly reduces computational overhead on in third-party clouds. It utilizes cryptographic
both data owners and data users. The paper primitives such as zero-knowledge proofs and
highlights the importance of lightweight symmetric encryption to enforce secure operations
operations, especially for resource-constrained while ensuring minimal information leakage. The
devices, and ensures that the scheme maintains work stands out for its comprehensive approach to
strong security guarantees. Their contributions are both structural security and privacy resilience in
critical for practical deployment in scenarios like adversarial cloud environments.
mobile cloud computing and IoT-integrated cloud
systems.

3. Sharma, P., & Kalra, S. (2020). Access Control III. PROPOSED WORK
with Privacy-Preserving in Cloud Storage.
Computer Communications. The proposed system aims to enhance cloud data
security by implementing a decentralized access
Sharma and Kalra introduce a privacy-preserving control framework that incorporates anonymous
access control mechanism aimed at securing data authentication and attribute-based encryption
(ABE). Unlike traditional centralized systems, this
stored in cloud environments. Their solution blends
architecture distributes the responsibility of key
cryptographic tools such as homomorphic distribution across multiple Key Distribution
encryption and pseudonym generation to enforce Centers (KDCs) to eliminate single points of failure
secure access policies while protecting user and reduce the risk of data breaches.
identities. This dual focus on access control and Anonymous Authentication: Users are verified
privacy ensures that cloud service providers cannot through anonymous tokens, ensuring identity
infer user activities or data preferences. The protection and preventing unauthorized tracking or
profiling.
authors validate their model through detailed Attribute-Based Encryption (ABE): Access rights
security analysis and performance evaluation, are defined by user attributes rather than identity,
showing its viability for sensitive domains like enabling fine-grained, policy-based data sharing
healthcare and finance. and minimizing unnecessary exposure of user
credentials.
4. Liu, J., Xiao, Y., & Tang, Y. (2023). Access Decentralized KDCs: By leveraging multiple
Control for Cloud Storage Using Smart Contracts. KDCs, the system reduces dependency on a single
IEEE Access. authority, improving scalability, fault tolerance,
and security.
Simulated Cloud Environment Testing: The The TA or KDCs can revoke access by updating
system is evaluated using a simulated cloud attribute keys or blacklisting expired/compromised
infrastructure, allowing performance tokens.
benchmarking under realistic network conditions.
Security and Performance Metrics: The model
V. SYSTEM ARCHITECTURE
achieves superior outcomes in terms of accuracy
(97%), precision (94%), recall (96%), and F1-
score (95%), outperforming existing systems like
CP-ABE and blockchain-based models.
This work positions itself as an ideal solution for
privacy-sensitive domains such as healthcare,
finance, and government cloud services, where
secure, scalable, and user-anonymous data access
is crucial.

IV. SYSTEM WORKFLOW

The workflow of the proposed system involves
multiple entities cooperating securely to enforce
access control and preserve user anonymity. The
steps are as follows:
1. System Initialization
A Trusted Authority (TA) sets up global system
parameters and public keys.
Multiple Key Distribution Centers (KDCs) are
initialized to manage and distribute attribute-based
private keys to users.
2. User Registration
A user submits their attributes to a nearby KDC
without revealing their identity.
The KDC verifies the user’s attributes and issues
attribute secret keys and anonymous authentication
tokens.
The anonymous token ensures that users can
authenticate without revealing personal identity
details.
3. Data Owner Encryption & Upload
The data owner defines an access policy based on VI. PROCESS FLOW
attributes (e.g., “Department = HR” AND “Role =
Manager”). The process flow of the proposed system is divided
The data is encrypted using Attribute-Based into six major phases:
Encryption (ABE), binding the ciphertext to the 1. Setup Phase
defined policy. The Trusted Authority (TA) initializes the system by
Encrypted data is uploaded to the cloud storage. generating global public parameters.
4. User Request & Authentication Multiple Key Distribution Centers (KDCs) are
The user sends a data access request to the cloud configured to handle attribute key generation and
along with an anonymous token. management.
The cloud verifies the token through the TA/KDC The cloud service provider prepares the
without knowing the actual identity of the user. environment to store encrypted data and verify
5. Policy Verification & Key Usage anonymous tokens.
If the user’s attributes (held in secret keys from 2. Registration Phase
KDCs) satisfy the access policy: Users register with a KDC, presenting their
The user is permitted to download the ciphertext. attributes (e.g., role, department).
The user uses their attribute keys to decrypt the The KDC verifies attributes and issues:
data locally. Attribute Secret Keys (used for decryption),
6. Auditing and Revocation (Optional) Anonymous Authentication Tokens (used to access
For accountability and revocation: the system without identity exposure).
Smart logs may be maintained for anonymous 3. Data Encryption & Upload Phase
audits. A data owner defines an access policy (e.g., “Role:
Doctor AND Department: Cardiology”).
The data is encrypted using Attribute-Based KDC. If the user's attributes satisfy the access
Encryption (ABE) tied to this policy. policy associated with the encrypted file, the cloud
The encrypted data is then uploaded to the cloud. grants access to the ciphertext. The user then
4. Authentication Phase decrypts the file locally using their attribute secret
When a user wants to access data, they present keys. This design ensures that data confidentiality
their anonymous authentication token. and user anonymity are preserved, even if the cloud
The cloud server verifies the token’s validity provider is untrusted. The system also incorporates
through the TA or KDC, without knowing the user's optional modules for revocation and audit logging,
real identity. allowing KDCs to revoke access or monitor system
5. Access Control & Decryption Phase activity without compromising user privacy. The
The cloud checks if the user's attributes (embedded implementation was tested using simulated cloud
in their keys) satisfy the access policy of the environments and synthetic data sets. Performance
encrypted data. was evaluated using key metrics such as accuracy,
If the policy is satisfied, the ciphertext is sent to the precision, recall, and F1-score, with results
user. showing a significant improvement over existing
The user decrypts the data locally using their models, achieving an F1-score of 95%. This
attribute keys. demonstrates the system’s practical viability for
6. Revocation & Audit (Optional Phase) real-world applications such as healthcare,
In case of a breach or expired credentials, the KDC finance, and enterprise-level cloud solutions where
or TA can revoke the user’s access by: data privacy and fine-grained access control are
Updating the access policy or critical.
Invalidating the attribute keys or tokens.
Audit logs can be maintained for anonymous usage
tracking and system integrity verification. [Link] AND DISCUSSION
The proposed system was implemented and
evaluated in a simulated cloud environment to
VII. IMPLEMENTATION measure its effectiveness in providing secure,
anonymous, and decentralized access control. The
The proposed system is implemented using a evaluation focused on key performance metrics
simulated cloud environment to validate its
such as accuracy, precision, recall, and F1-score,
effectiveness in providing decentralized access
control with anonymous authentication. The comparing the results against existing access
implementation begins with the initialization of a control models like CP-ABE, Yu et al.'s ABE Model,
Trusted Authority (TA) and multiple Key and Ruj et al.'s Anonymous Authentication
Distribution Centers (KDCs). The TA is framework. The results showed that the proposed
responsible for generating global system system achieved an accuracy of 97%, precision of
parameters and cryptographic keys, while each 94%, recall of 96%, and an F1-score of 95%,
KDC independently issues attribute-based secret
keys to users based on their roles or which outperformed the benchmark models. In
characteristics. This decentralized key management comparison, Ruj et al.'s model achieved an F1-
eliminates the risk of single-point failure and score of 93%, and traditional CP-ABE recorded
enhances the system's scalability. User registration only 86%. This indicates that the integration of
is performed through a secure interface where attribute-based encryption with decentralized key
users submit their attributes to the appropriate distribution and anonymous authentication
KDC. Upon successful verification, the KDC
significantly enhances the system’s ability to
generates corresponding attribute secret keys and
issues anonymous authentication tokens to users. enforce precise and reliable access control in cloud
These tokens are designed using cryptographic environments. One of the key strengths of the
hash functions and digital signatures to ensure they system is its privacy-preserving nature. Unlike
are tamper-proof and unlinkable to the user’s real centralized models where a single authority
identity. Data owners encrypt their files using manages all user credentials and access rights, the
Ciphertext-Policy Attribute-Based Encryption
decentralized approach distributes trust among
(CP-ABE), binding the encryption to specific
access control policies (e.g., "Role: Professor AND multiple Key Distribution Centers (KDCs). This not
Department: CSE"). The encrypted data is then only mitigates risks associated with a single point
uploaded to the cloud storage. When a user of failure but also ensures that no single entity has
requests access to the data, they submit their complete knowledge of users’ identities or access
anonymous token, which is validated by the cloud patterns. Furthermore, the use of anonymous
service through collaboration with the TA or a tokens effectively prevents the cloud service
provider from tracking user behavior, thereby The system proves particularly beneficial for
maintaining user anonymity without compromising applications in sensitive domains like healthcare,
authentication accuracy. This is particularly finance, government, and enterprise environments,
important in sensitive domains like healthcare and where data confidentiality and user privacy are
finance, where data privacy is a legal and ethical critical.
requirement. However, the system does introduce
Future Scope
some implementation complexity, particularly in
managing multiple KDCs and maintaining While the current implementation demonstrates
synchronization among them. There is also promising results, several areas offer opportunities
computational overhead associated with for enhancement in future research:
cryptographic operations such as token generation,
attribute key distribution, and ABE • Blockchain Integration: Incorporating
encryption/decryption. Despite these challenges, blockchain technology could provide
the overall benefits in terms of security, privacy, immutable access logs, enhance
and performance outweigh the trade-offs, transparency, and support decentralized
especially when deployed in scenarios that demand auditing without compromising privacy.
robust data protection. In summary, the
• Real-World Deployment: Testing and
experimental results validate that the proposed
validating the system in real-world cloud
model not only improves data security and access
platforms (e.g., AWS, Azure) will help
control granularity but also ensures user privacy
identify deployment-level challenges and
through anonymous authentication mechanisms,
optimize performance further.
making it highly suitable for modern cloud
computing applications. • Lightweight Cryptographic Schemes: To
improve performance in resource-
constrained environments (e.g., IoT
[Link] AND FUTURE devices), lightweight ABE and token
SCOPE mechanisms can be explored.

• Dynamic Attribute Management: Future

Conclusion
versions could include mechanisms to
In this paper, a decentralized access control model handle real-time attribute updates,
with anonymous authentication has been proposed revocation, and policy changes more
and implemented to address the growing security efficiently.
and privacy concerns in cloud storage systems. By
integrating Attribute-Based Encryption (ABE) with • AI-Driven Threat Detection:
anonymous token-based authentication and Incorporating machine learning for
distributed Key Distribution Centers (KDCs), the anomaly detection and threat prediction
system ensures fine-grained access control while could further strengthen system security.
preserving user anonymity. The proposed By building on these directions, the proposed
framework eliminates the need for a centralized system can evolve into a more robust, adaptive, and
authority, thereby enhancing fault tolerance, intelligent access control solution suitable for
reducing trust dependencies, and increasing future cloud-based infrastructures.
scalability.

Experimental results conducted in a simulated

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