A User-Centric Key Management for Cloud Encryption Using Key Derivation Function

In this paper, we propose a user-centric key management for cloud encryption using the key derivation function. This function produces a fresh key for each session from the user’s password, a random value stored in user’s device, and the hash value of the processed data. In this way, users only keep a fixed small secret information in all working session, but the cryptographic keys are still complex and nonreusable. Therefore, key management is either strong enough against attackers or convenient for usage. An experiment of the key generation is performed with three key derivation functions including HKDF, PBKDF2, and scrypt. We then compare performance of encryption/decryption process with and without key derivation function. The results show that our proposed key management enhances both security and convenience although it slightly elongates the processing duration.