4th International Workshop on Pervasive and Context-Aware Middleware

Research Article

A Context-Based Security Framework for Cloud Services

  • @INPROCEEDINGS{10.4108/icst.iccasa.2014.258610,
        author={HASSAN ALQAHTANI and Ghita Kouadri Mostefaoui and Zakaria Maamar},
        title={A Context-Based Security Framework for Cloud Services },
        proceedings={4th International Workshop on Pervasive and Context-Aware Middleware},
        publisher={ACM},
        proceedings_a={PERCAM14},
        year={2015},
        month={3},
        keywords={cloud computing frontend web services aspect-oriented-programming security cross-cutting concern},
        doi={10.4108/icst.iccasa.2014.258610}
    }
    
  • HASSAN ALQAHTANI
    Ghita Kouadri Mostefaoui
    Zakaria Maamar
    Year: 2015
    A Context-Based Security Framework for Cloud Services
    PERCAM14
    ICST
    DOI: 10.4108/icst.iccasa.2014.258610
HASSAN ALQAHTANI1,*, Ghita Kouadri Mostefaoui2, Zakaria Maamar3
  • 1: University Campus Milton Keynes, Milton Keynes, UK
  • 2: University College London, London, UK
  • 3: Zayed University, Abu Dhabi, UAE
*Contact email: hassan.alqahtani@study.beds.ac.uk

Abstract

This paper discusses the use of Aspect-Oriented Programming (AOP) as an efficient way to handle cloud computing frontend security concerns. Without AOP, the necessary security code would be mixed with the business logic that the cloud service provider implements. This makes the maintenance of both code and business logic tedious and prone to errors. The proposed aspect-oriented approach in this paper is built upon a Web services frontend to the cloud service. Three types of context are taken into account when tuning the aspects (security services). The contexts contain various details on the environment of the Cloud and the Web services, which permit activating the necessary aspects in response to these details. A set of experiments validating this approach, are also reported in this paper.