Published Paper Details:

Secure file storage is essential to protecting sensitive data from unauthorized access or tampering. Hybrid cryptography is a widely used technique combining the benefits of symmetric and asymmetric encryption to provide robust security. This study has been undertaken in order to provide an efficient way to secure confidential files and sensitive information. In general, either a strong encryption algorithm is used to protect files or either authentication is done, or digital signatures are used. This provides only midlevel security to the files. In the proposed system, all these security implications are provided along with access controls. Moreover, three strong symmetric encryption algorithms are used along with an asymmetric algorithm that secures the key. The Key Derivation Function generates the key using the password and hash. To add an additional layer of protection to the files, the cipher texts are digitally signed using a Digital Signature Algorithm. In this proposed research, the contents of the file are divided into 3 segments. Each segment is encrypted using a different symmetric algorithm. The first segment is encrypted using Advanced Encryption Standard (AES) Algorithm, the second segment is encrypted using Fernet Algorithm and the third segment is encrypted using ChaCha20 Algorithm. The Key Derivation function used is Argon2. This adds an additional layer of security as it provides better protection against brute-forcing attacks. The keys are digitally signed using ECDSA (Elliptic Curve Digital Signature Algorithm) and the keys and signature along with the cipher texts are stored in a password-protected zip file with access controls set in such a way that only the user can read/write the file. The password is provided by the user and the user must use it to recover his/her files. This file is uploaded/stored in the database with access controls. This method provides all kinds of security measures such as confidentiality, integrity, authentication, authorization, access controls, and non-repudiation.