Question

How to protect the availability of large amounts of data securely and cost-effectively?

Context

Cloud computing service consumers often have legal or regulatory obligation to keep certain, otherwise no longer or seldom used, data for a predefined amount of time before deletion is allowed. Such data, when left in the online, readily-available application storage not only poses unnecessary burden on the budget, but also increases the vulnerability footprint.

Solution

Most of the cloud service platforms provide an option for cold storage where the data can be stored temporarily or permanently. However, data stored on cloud storage should be encrypted to ensure data confidentiality and integrity (cryptographic hash function).