Mohammed Alzain | Taif University, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (original) (raw)

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Papers by Mohammed Alzain

Research paper thumbnail of A New Era with Blockchain Technology in Saudi Arabia

International Journal of Emerging Trends in Engineering Research, 2019

Recently, digital developments have led to revolutionary new technologies such as the Internet, s... more Recently, digital developments have led to revolutionary new technologies such as the Internet, smartphones, smart machines and digital currency, and have changed culture and concepts around the world. Culture represents the identity of the human environment and the development and openness of society in the transmission of information and knowledge to generations. In both public and private sectors, sensitive information with the integrity of data should remain safe and confidential and cannot be infringed upon, which constitutes the underlying principle of the new technology, blockchain. To that end, in this paper we survey research related to blockchain in the last four years from 2015 to 2018. We then explore the implications of this new blockchain technology in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. On the basis of this study, recommendations on future blockchain technology research directions in Saudi Arabia are also provided.

Research paper thumbnail of Multi-Cloud Data Management using Shamir's Secret Sharing and Quantum Byzantine Agreement Schemes

International Journal of Cloud Applications and Computing, 2015

Research paper thumbnail of Performance Overhead Evaluation of Multi-cloud Computing with Secret Sharing approach Based Model

Data security is one of the most critical aspects in a cloud computing environment due to the sen... more Data security is one of the most critical aspects in a cloud computing environment due to the sensitivity and importance of the information stored in the cloud, as is the trustworthiness of the cloud service provider. The risk of malicious insiders in the cloud and the failure of cloud services have received intense attention by cloud users. The aim of this work is to analyse and evaluate an existing model called Multi-clouds Databases (MCDB) which uses multi-clouds instead of single cloud service provider, such as in Amazon cloud service, and compare it with other cryptographic based model. Our MCDB model incorporated Shamir's secret sharing approach. In addition, it adopted a triple modular redundancy (TMR) technique with sequential method to improve data trustworthiness of cloud computing system and then enhance the data security aspect. The evaluation is done through simulation using cloud computing simulator. It shows a significant improvement in performance for data storage and data retrieval compared to a cloud cryptographic based model. This improvement in performance in MCDB model is due to the computational complexity of data encryption/decryption during a query execution in the cryptographic based model.

Research paper thumbnail of TMR-MCDB: Enhancing Security in a Multi-cloud Model through Improvement of Service Dependability

In IT enterprises, different computing needs are provided as a service. The service providers tak... more In IT enterprises, different computing needs are provided as a service. The service providers take care of the customers" needs by, for example, maintaining software or purchasing expensive hardware. In addition, there are many benefits of using the technology available from cloud service providers, such as access to large-scale, on-demand, flexible computing infrastructures. However, increasing the dependability of cloud computing is important in order for its potential to be realized. Data security is one of the most critical aspects in a cloud computing environment due to the sensitivity and importance of the information stored in the cloud, as is the trustworthiness of the cloud service provider. The risk of malicious insiders in the cloud and the failure of cloud services have received intense attention by cloud users.This paper focuses on issues related to service dependability in order to enhance the data security of multi-cloud computing. Service dependability, which encompasses data output trustworthiness, is one of the important factors in enhancing data security in a multi-cloud computing environment. We apply triple modular redundancy (TMR) techniques with the sequential method into our previously proposed Multi-Cloud Database (MCDB) model to improve the data output trustworthiness of our newly proposed TMR-MCDB model. In addition, the improvement in data trustworthiness enhances data security in our TMR-MCDB model. This paper analyzes the impact of data trustworthiness implementation using the voting technique to evaluate the model performance.

Research paper thumbnail of Mohammed A. Alzain, Ben Soh, Eric Pardede: A New approach using redundancy technique to improve security in cloud computing. CyberSec 2012: 230-235

Security is considered to be one of the most critical aspects in a cloud computing environment du... more Security is considered to be one of the most critical aspects in a cloud computing environment due to the sensitivity and importance of information stored in the cloud and also because the management of the data might not be fully trustworthy. The risk of malicious insiders in the cloud and the failing of cloud services have received a strong attention by companies.

Research paper thumbnail of MCDB: Using Multi-clouds to Ensure Security in Cloud Computing

2011 IEEE Ninth International Conference on Dependable, Autonomic and Secure Computing, 2011

Security is considered to be one of the most critical aspects in a cloud computing environment du... more Security is considered to be one of the most critical aspects in a cloud computing environment due to the sensitive and important information stored in the cloud for users. Users are wondering about attacks on the integrity and the availability of their data in the cloud from malicious insiders and outsiders, and from any collateral damage of cloud services. These issues are extremely significant but there is still much room for security research in cloud computing.

Research paper thumbnail of A new model to ensure security in cloud computing services

Journal of Service Science Research, 2012

In the commercial world, various computing needs are provided as a service. Service providers mee... more In the commercial world, various computing needs are provided as a service. Service providers meet these computing needs in different ways, for example, by maintaining software or purchasing expensive hardware. Security is one of the most critical aspects in a cloud computing environment due to the sensitivity and importance of information stored in the cloud. The risk of malicious insiders in the cloud and the failure of cloud services have received a great deal of attention by companies. This paper focuses on issues related to data security and privacy in cloud computing and proposes a new model, called Multi-Cloud Databases (MCDB). The purpose of the proposed new model is to address security and privacy risks in the cloud computing environment. Three security issues will be examined in our proposed model: data integrity, data intrusion, and service availability. . He has wide range of teaching and research experience including in the area of databases, software engineering, information systems, entrepreneurship, and professional communication.

Research paper thumbnail of A Byzantine Fault Tolerance Model for a Multi-cloud Computing

2013 IEEE 16th International Conference on Computational Science and Engineering, 2013

Data security has become an important requirement for clients when dealing with clouds that may f... more Data security has become an important requirement for clients when dealing with clouds that may fail due to faults in the software or hardware, or attacks from malicious insiders. Hence, building a highly dependable and reliable cloud system has become a critical research problem. This paper presents BFT-MCDB (Byzantine Fault Tolerance Multi-Clouds Database), a practical model for building a system with Byzantine fault tolerance in a multi-cloud environment. The model relies on a novel approach that combines Byzantine Agreement protocols and Shamir's secret sharing approach to detect Byzantine failure in a multi-cloud computing environment as well as ensuring the security of the stored data within the cloud. Using qualitative analysis, we show that adopting the Byzantine Agreement protocols in the proposed BFT-MCDB model increases system reliability and enables gains in regard to the three security dimensions (data integrity, data confidentiality, and service availability). We also carry out experiments to determine the overheads of using the Agreement protocols.

Research paper thumbnail of A Survey on Data Security Issues in Cloud Computing: From Single to Multi-Clouds

Journal of Software, 2013

Cloud computing usage has increased rapidly in many companies. Cloud computing offers many benefi... more Cloud computing usage has increased rapidly in many companies. Cloud computing offers many benefits in terms of low cost and accessibility of data. Ensuring the security of cloud computing plays a major role in the cloud computing, as customers often store important information with cloud storage providers but these providers may be unsafe. Customers are wondering about attacks on the integrity and the availability of their data in the cloud from malicious insiders and outsiders, and from any collateral damage of cloud services. These issues are extremely significant but there is still much room for security research in cloud computing. Dealing with "single cloud" providers is predicted to become less popular with customers due to risks of service availability failure and the possibility of malicious insiders in the single cloud. A movement towards "multi-clouds", or in other words, "interclouds" or "cloudof-clouds" has increased recently.

Research paper thumbnail of Cloud Computing Security: From Single to Multi-clouds

2012 45th Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences, 2012

The use of cloud computing has increased rapidly in many organizations. Cloud computing provides ... more The use of cloud computing has increased rapidly in many organizations. Cloud computing provides many benefits in terms of low cost and accessibility of data. Ensuring the security of cloud computing is a major factor in the cloud computing environment, as users often store sensitive information with cloud storage providers but these providers may be untrusted. Dealing with "single cloud" providers is predicted to become less popular with customers due to risks of service availability failure and the possibility of malicious insiders in the single cloud. A movement towards "multi-clouds", or in other words, "interclouds" or "cloud-of-clouds" has emerged recently.

Research paper thumbnail of A New Era with Blockchain Technology in Saudi Arabia

International Journal of Emerging Trends in Engineering Research, 2019

Recently, digital developments have led to revolutionary new technologies such as the Internet, s... more Recently, digital developments have led to revolutionary new technologies such as the Internet, smartphones, smart machines and digital currency, and have changed culture and concepts around the world. Culture represents the identity of the human environment and the development and openness of society in the transmission of information and knowledge to generations. In both public and private sectors, sensitive information with the integrity of data should remain safe and confidential and cannot be infringed upon, which constitutes the underlying principle of the new technology, blockchain. To that end, in this paper we survey research related to blockchain in the last four years from 2015 to 2018. We then explore the implications of this new blockchain technology in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. On the basis of this study, recommendations on future blockchain technology research directions in Saudi Arabia are also provided.

Research paper thumbnail of Multi-Cloud Data Management using Shamir's Secret Sharing and Quantum Byzantine Agreement Schemes

International Journal of Cloud Applications and Computing, 2015

Research paper thumbnail of Performance Overhead Evaluation of Multi-cloud Computing with Secret Sharing approach Based Model

Data security is one of the most critical aspects in a cloud computing environment due to the sen... more Data security is one of the most critical aspects in a cloud computing environment due to the sensitivity and importance of the information stored in the cloud, as is the trustworthiness of the cloud service provider. The risk of malicious insiders in the cloud and the failure of cloud services have received intense attention by cloud users. The aim of this work is to analyse and evaluate an existing model called Multi-clouds Databases (MCDB) which uses multi-clouds instead of single cloud service provider, such as in Amazon cloud service, and compare it with other cryptographic based model. Our MCDB model incorporated Shamir's secret sharing approach. In addition, it adopted a triple modular redundancy (TMR) technique with sequential method to improve data trustworthiness of cloud computing system and then enhance the data security aspect. The evaluation is done through simulation using cloud computing simulator. It shows a significant improvement in performance for data storage and data retrieval compared to a cloud cryptographic based model. This improvement in performance in MCDB model is due to the computational complexity of data encryption/decryption during a query execution in the cryptographic based model.

Research paper thumbnail of TMR-MCDB: Enhancing Security in a Multi-cloud Model through Improvement of Service Dependability

In IT enterprises, different computing needs are provided as a service. The service providers tak... more In IT enterprises, different computing needs are provided as a service. The service providers take care of the customers" needs by, for example, maintaining software or purchasing expensive hardware. In addition, there are many benefits of using the technology available from cloud service providers, such as access to large-scale, on-demand, flexible computing infrastructures. However, increasing the dependability of cloud computing is important in order for its potential to be realized. Data security is one of the most critical aspects in a cloud computing environment due to the sensitivity and importance of the information stored in the cloud, as is the trustworthiness of the cloud service provider. The risk of malicious insiders in the cloud and the failure of cloud services have received intense attention by cloud users.This paper focuses on issues related to service dependability in order to enhance the data security of multi-cloud computing. Service dependability, which encompasses data output trustworthiness, is one of the important factors in enhancing data security in a multi-cloud computing environment. We apply triple modular redundancy (TMR) techniques with the sequential method into our previously proposed Multi-Cloud Database (MCDB) model to improve the data output trustworthiness of our newly proposed TMR-MCDB model. In addition, the improvement in data trustworthiness enhances data security in our TMR-MCDB model. This paper analyzes the impact of data trustworthiness implementation using the voting technique to evaluate the model performance.

Research paper thumbnail of Mohammed A. Alzain, Ben Soh, Eric Pardede: A New approach using redundancy technique to improve security in cloud computing. CyberSec 2012: 230-235

Security is considered to be one of the most critical aspects in a cloud computing environment du... more Security is considered to be one of the most critical aspects in a cloud computing environment due to the sensitivity and importance of information stored in the cloud and also because the management of the data might not be fully trustworthy. The risk of malicious insiders in the cloud and the failing of cloud services have received a strong attention by companies.

Research paper thumbnail of MCDB: Using Multi-clouds to Ensure Security in Cloud Computing

2011 IEEE Ninth International Conference on Dependable, Autonomic and Secure Computing, 2011

Security is considered to be one of the most critical aspects in a cloud computing environment du... more Security is considered to be one of the most critical aspects in a cloud computing environment due to the sensitive and important information stored in the cloud for users. Users are wondering about attacks on the integrity and the availability of their data in the cloud from malicious insiders and outsiders, and from any collateral damage of cloud services. These issues are extremely significant but there is still much room for security research in cloud computing.

Research paper thumbnail of A new model to ensure security in cloud computing services

Journal of Service Science Research, 2012

In the commercial world, various computing needs are provided as a service. Service providers mee... more In the commercial world, various computing needs are provided as a service. Service providers meet these computing needs in different ways, for example, by maintaining software or purchasing expensive hardware. Security is one of the most critical aspects in a cloud computing environment due to the sensitivity and importance of information stored in the cloud. The risk of malicious insiders in the cloud and the failure of cloud services have received a great deal of attention by companies. This paper focuses on issues related to data security and privacy in cloud computing and proposes a new model, called Multi-Cloud Databases (MCDB). The purpose of the proposed new model is to address security and privacy risks in the cloud computing environment. Three security issues will be examined in our proposed model: data integrity, data intrusion, and service availability. . He has wide range of teaching and research experience including in the area of databases, software engineering, information systems, entrepreneurship, and professional communication.

Research paper thumbnail of A Byzantine Fault Tolerance Model for a Multi-cloud Computing

2013 IEEE 16th International Conference on Computational Science and Engineering, 2013

Data security has become an important requirement for clients when dealing with clouds that may f... more Data security has become an important requirement for clients when dealing with clouds that may fail due to faults in the software or hardware, or attacks from malicious insiders. Hence, building a highly dependable and reliable cloud system has become a critical research problem. This paper presents BFT-MCDB (Byzantine Fault Tolerance Multi-Clouds Database), a practical model for building a system with Byzantine fault tolerance in a multi-cloud environment. The model relies on a novel approach that combines Byzantine Agreement protocols and Shamir's secret sharing approach to detect Byzantine failure in a multi-cloud computing environment as well as ensuring the security of the stored data within the cloud. Using qualitative analysis, we show that adopting the Byzantine Agreement protocols in the proposed BFT-MCDB model increases system reliability and enables gains in regard to the three security dimensions (data integrity, data confidentiality, and service availability). We also carry out experiments to determine the overheads of using the Agreement protocols.

Research paper thumbnail of A Survey on Data Security Issues in Cloud Computing: From Single to Multi-Clouds

Journal of Software, 2013

Cloud computing usage has increased rapidly in many companies. Cloud computing offers many benefi... more Cloud computing usage has increased rapidly in many companies. Cloud computing offers many benefits in terms of low cost and accessibility of data. Ensuring the security of cloud computing plays a major role in the cloud computing, as customers often store important information with cloud storage providers but these providers may be unsafe. Customers are wondering about attacks on the integrity and the availability of their data in the cloud from malicious insiders and outsiders, and from any collateral damage of cloud services. These issues are extremely significant but there is still much room for security research in cloud computing. Dealing with "single cloud" providers is predicted to become less popular with customers due to risks of service availability failure and the possibility of malicious insiders in the single cloud. A movement towards "multi-clouds", or in other words, "interclouds" or "cloudof-clouds" has increased recently.

Research paper thumbnail of Cloud Computing Security: From Single to Multi-clouds

2012 45th Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences, 2012

The use of cloud computing has increased rapidly in many organizations. Cloud computing provides ... more The use of cloud computing has increased rapidly in many organizations. Cloud computing provides many benefits in terms of low cost and accessibility of data. Ensuring the security of cloud computing is a major factor in the cloud computing environment, as users often store sensitive information with cloud storage providers but these providers may be untrusted. Dealing with "single cloud" providers is predicted to become less popular with customers due to risks of service availability failure and the possibility of malicious insiders in the single cloud. A movement towards "multi-clouds", or in other words, "interclouds" or "cloud-of-clouds" has emerged recently.