The Mist: Securing Cloud Storage
Dinesh Devkota1 Travis McAdams2 Dr. Ihssan Alkadi3 Dr. Ghassan Alkadi4 Dr. Theresa Beaubouef5

Introduction
In the past, people would run applications on their local machines, with data stored in same physical location. Today, people are moving to “the cloud” to run those application and store their data. Since data is valuable, security is essential in a world where one’s data is stored in the public domain. It is important to be aware of the physical locations where data is stored and the laws that impact rights to that data.

The Mist Security Algorithm

Technology & Implementation
We utilized VMware's virtualization platform in concert with an enterprise grade server to meet our goals of building this solution on the latest enterprise software and hardware infrastructure. • Hardware: • Dell PowerEdge Server • RAID 1 Data Store • Hypervisor: • VMware ESXi 5.5.0 • OS: • Debain 7.2 (Wheezy) • Apps: • Apache • MySQL • OwnCloud

Traditionally, people are provided with email verification, phone verification, and security questions as verification for resetting forgotten passwords. “The Mist” implements an enhanced security question verification algorithm that allows users access to their accounts and data. http://scale.wpengine.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/ILLUST_Cloud_Syncing_0723-1024x869.png http://cdn3.techworld.com/cmsdata/products/3230674/VMware_Stack.PNG

• What if a copy of your data is located in a region where the government is overthrown? • How secure would your data become? • What impact could theft and loss of this data have in your life? We have implemented a cloud storage solution using the latest cloud technologies for today’s enterprise. This solution supports a security algorithm called “The Mist”.

• Each user creates three security questions and answers. • Authentication with “The