Policy Management Engine (PME): A policy-based schema to classify and manage sensitive data in cloud storages

Abstract One of the most challenging issues regarding to the information policy concerns in cloud computing environments is to provide an appropriate level of security for the stored data in cloud storages. In fact, each individual cloud customer needs to be granted reliable security level(s) based on defined details in SLA. The main aim of this paper is to propose multi-level policy-based schema to classify and manage data in cloud storages based on the sensitivity and confidentiality for enhancement of reliability in cloud computing environments. Furthermore, an efficient algorithm has been introduced to ensure the accuracy and authenticity of applying and managing defined policies according to the capabilities of the cloud providers and requirements of cloud customers. The most important characteristic of this model is syntactic and semantic analysis of requested policies by validity engine to provide reliable mapping between security mechanism and requested policies. Moreover, Policy Match Gate and Policy Checkpoint have been introduced to ensure about the policy application processes for all stored data based on defined policies in Security Level Certificate.