| Security has emerged as the most feared aspect of cloud computing and a major hindrance for the customers. Current cloud framework does not allow encrypted data to be stored due to the absence of efficient searchable encryption schemes that allow query execution on a cloud database. Storing unencrypted data exposes the data not only to an external attacker but also to the cloud provider itself. Thus, trusting a provider with confidential data is highly risky.;To enable querying on a cloud database without compromising data confidentiality, we propose to use data obfuscation through visual cryptography. A new scheme for visual cryptography is developed and configured for the cloud for storing and retrieving textual data. Testing the system with query execution on a cloud database indicates full accuracy in record retrievals with negligible false positives. In addition, the system is resilient to attacks from within and outside the cloud. Since standard encryption and key management are avoided, our approach is computationally efficient and data confidentiality is maintained. |
