Revisiting Cloud Security Threat: Dictionary Attack

Abstract

Several methodologies and algorithms work on the processing of cloud data and possess several security and privacy threats. The data storage feature with applications is the kernel of cloud computing services, especially for remote applications where high security risk scale is needed. In cloud computing services, password based authentication is the basic security measure for the data storage services but still, insecure communication channels are particularly vulnerable to cloud threats. The act of hacking the password is the main weakness of cloud, where attacker easily guesses the secret key by automated programs and running dictionary attacks. Researchers and experts have engineered many protocols to prevent authentication attacks. Still, there is a need to analyze individual authentication attacks such as dictionary attacks parameters separately for effective designing of protocols. More specifically, this paper presents a study on dictionary attack with respect to authentication objective and will determine its root causes through previously accomplished research studies. The key idea is to indicate the future research directions in the area through which an in-depth study would lead to new ideas for mitigation technique of dictionary attack. The proposed conclusive findings will also help to study and overcomes the root causes of previously recommended methods and for improving the user authentication security.