Issues and challenges of access control in the cloud

Cloud computing offers scalable and efficient information sharing and storage resources. However, the risk of security breaches for personal and private data in this computing environment is very high. Access control is among the most adopted means to assure that sensible information or resources are correctly accessed. This paper provides an overview of main access control models in cloud infrastructures discussing most important challenges. In particular, focusing on access control policy specification, analysis, verification and enforcement, we also identify some emerging issues and point out some solutions and future research directions for cloud computing.