Mobile Cloud Computing Security Frameworks: A Review

Introduction

Mobile cloud computing is a technology that refers to accessing the resources in network whenever and wherever wanted (Gupta, 2012). The popularity of internet network and cloud computing is getting clear to all. Everything is going to be computerized and the popularity of cloud computing helps to have another architecture that inherits from previous technologies. The number of mobile devices are growing every day, thus the needs for mobile applications increases (Gupta, 2012). As well as having advantages using this technology, some significant issues can rise and cause concerns for users who want to migrate to cloud servers. These issues are privacy, accessibility, security, reliability and some other related ones (Reza, 2016). Mobile devices are becoming important as a part of human life which plays an important role that effects the life and makes it more convenient. Cloud computing has helped users to take their information with them everywhere, also helped to access them whenever wanted (Hoang, 2011). Mobile phones were not invented in the last century, but now is rare to find a house without some mobile phone device. Smart phones have become popular in the last 5 years and in 10 people 6 has a smart phone and the rest has a mobile phone device. Technology never leaves its users alone and is coming up fast according to their needs. According to Portio Research the number of mobile phone users will reach 7.5 till the end of 2014 (Al-Hammami, 2015). It means more 3 quarter of the world will choose mobile device to help them during the day, because it’s small, light, can make/receive a call, processes data and all the user needs can be done using it. Mobile phone device is considered one of the most common thing in the history of the technology (Al-Hammami, 2015). Today the mobile phone device has become a key point to contact between people, businesses and consumers. Mobile phone devices have changed the way of communication between human beings, also it contributed to the creation of new businesses (Al-Hammami, 2015). After popularity of MCC and increasing growth of mobile devices, limitations of mobile devices caused a kind of migration for mobile users to cloud. This way, it’s clear that mobile internet can fix in cloud computing architecture and because MCC is fixed on cloud computing architecture, so it inherits all security issues plus mobile device limitations. Portable devices need less CPU processing ability, storage capacity, battery, bandwidth, smaller monitor and keyboard than a PC. These are called limitations in MCC technology. Too many works have been done for improving security in cloud computing, but because of mobile device limitations all frameworks can’t be used in mobile devices (Chaubey, 2016). Mobile device limitations and security issues on the way of using MCC has drew attentions to itself. Many researches have been done to improve security and privacy that causes concerns for all users. Some solutions can run in mobile devices, some run in cloud-side and some can handle both. Because of mobile device limitations cloud-side frameworks are welcomed more than others. In this chapter the main purpose is to introduce different best security frameworks that are focused on data security and third party misuse. Then by comparison of these frameworks all features can be revealed clearly.