Emergency Recovery of Data Stored Privately on the Cloud

What is it about?

This work presents a protocol that allows a user, Alice, to store encrypted data on the cloud. This protocol provides Alice, and only Alice, with a way to perform an "emergency recovery" of this data at a later date. In an emergency recovery, Alice has forgotten everything that she used to know: her encryption keys and all authentication material. By providing emergency recovery, Alice's data is never lost, even if she loses her credentials.

Featured Image

Photo by Paul Hanaoka on Unsplash

Photo by Paul Hanaoka on Unsplash

Why is it important?

Cloud storage allows us to back up important material, providing availability. For example, backing up the secret key of a cryptocurrency wallet. However, private cloud back-ups require us to remember cryptographic secrets in order to retain availability, such as encryption keys, digital signature keys, and/or passwords. This means that the availability of the stored data relies on the availability of the credentials used to perform the private storage. Emergency recovery shows that this is not necessary. Namely, that the full availability of private cloud back-ups can be achieved even when the user has forgotten everything.