Abstract Cloud computing has become a cornerstone for modern enterprises, offering scalable and on-demand resources. However, its centralized architecture poses significant security challenges, especially concerning data access control and integrity. This paper proposes a novel approach that integrates blockchain technology with Attribute-Based Access Control (ABAC) to improve secure, context-aware data access in the cloud. The proposed solution leverages blockchain’s decentralized, immutable infrastructure to store access policies as smart contracts, providing dynamic and fine-grained access control. A middleware layer facilitates the evaluation of access requests, collecting contextual attributes such as time, location, and device type, which are validated against policies stored on the blockchain. The framework ensures traceability, transparency, and scalability while mitigating vulnerabilities associated with traditional Role-Based Access Control (RBAC) systems. Comparative analysis highlights the advantages of the blockchain-based ABAC system over conventional methods, demonstrating its potential to address evolving cloud security challenges. Furthermore, scenarios illustrating unauthorized and authorized access underline the robustness and functionality of the proposed approach. This work lays the foundation for secure and adaptive cloud environments, advancing the adoption of blockchain-based access control mechanisms.
ABOUESSAOUAB et al. (Wed,) studied this question.