Abstract
Cloud computing has become a significant computing model in the IT industry. In this emerging model, computing resources such as software, hardware, networking, and storage can be accessed anywhere in the world on a pay-per-use basis. However, storing sensitive data on un-trusted servers is a challenging issue for this model. To guarantee confidentiality and proper access control of outsourced sensitive data, classical encryption techniques are used. However, such access control schemes are not feasible in cloud computing because of their lack of flexibility, scalability, and fine-grained access control. Instead, Attribute-Based Encryption (ABE) techniques are used in the cloud. This paper extensively surveys all ABE schemes and creates a comparison table for the key criteria for these schemes in cloud applications.