Encrypted token based authentication with adapted SAML technology for cloud web services

Web applications and cloud services are rapidly emerging as the inevitable technology for communication between organizations. Cloud-based solutions are currently deployed to provide improvement in the existing business processes and services. The major challenge involved in cloud is data security that is stored and transferred. Cloud infrastructure requires an extensive authentication mechanism to protect data as well as to ensure that the right person is accessing the right information. In this paper, token based fine grained authentication for cloud web services with the help of adapted Security Assertion Markup Language (SAML) technology is proposed. The entire set of communications between Identity Provider, Service Provider and Cloud Server is encrypted to enhance the security. The combination of SAML and single use access token based verification provides improved security to cloud web services. The proposed adapted SAML authentication mechanism ensures flexibility and scalability of the environment by the provision of adding multiple numbers of trusted sources and web services.