ATTRIBUTE-BASED APPROACHES TO ENHANCE DATA SHARING SECURITY AND PRIVACY IN CLOUD ENVIRONMENTS

Abstract

Cloud computing has become the backbone of modern digital ecosystems, enabling scalable storage, computation, and seamless data sharing across distributed environments. However, the proliferation of sensitive information in cloud platforms raises pressing concerns over privacy and unauthorized access. Traditional access control mechanisms often fail to address dynamic, finegrained requirements of data owners in multi-user and multi-tenant contexts. In recent years, Attribute-Based Encryption (ABE) and related attribute-driven techniques have emerged as powerful paradigms to ensure confidentiality, flexible access control, and accountability in cloudbased data sharing. This paper investigates attribute-based approaches as a solution to strengthen data sharing security, offering resistance against unauthorized access, collusion attacks, and insider threats. By integrating attribute-based models with cryptographic primitives and policy-driven enforcement, the study aims to design a scalable and privacy-preserving framework that balances usability with robust protection. Experimental evaluations demonstrate the effectiveness of these approaches in minimizing overhead while maintaining strong security guarantees