AZ – TAC Adaptive Zero Trust Access Control with Continuous Authentication for Secured Cloud Environments

AZ – TAC Adaptive Zero Trust Access Control with Continuous Authentication for Secured Cloud Environments | Research Square window.SnipcartSettings = { analytics: { enabled: false } }; (function() { var accessVector = localStorage.getItem('access_vector') || ''; window.dataLayer = window.dataLayer || []; if (accessVector) { window.dataLayer.push({ user: { profile: { profileInfo: { snid: accessVector } } } }); } })(); (function(w,d,s,l,i){w[l]=w[l]||[];w[l].push({'gtm.start':new Date().getTime(),event:'gtm.js'});var f=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0],j=d.createElement(s),dl=l!='dataLayer'?'&l='+l:'';j.async=true;j.src='https://www.googletagmanager.com/gtm.js?id='+i+dl;f.parentNode.insertBefore(j,f);})(window,document,'script','dataLayer','GTM-K279D39R'); Browse Preprints In Review Journals COVID-19 Preprints AJE Video Bytes Research Tools Research Promotion AJE Professional Editing AJE Rubriq About Preprint Platform In Review Editorial Policies Our Team Advisory Board Help Center Sign In Submit a Preprint Cite Share Download PDF Article AZ – TAC Adaptive Zero Trust Access Control with Continuous Authentication for Secured Cloud Environments A Aswini, S Prasanna This is a preprint; it has not been peer reviewed by a journal. https://doi.org/ 10.21203/rs.3.rs-8922010/v1 This work is licensed under a CC BY 4.0 License Status: Posted Version 1 posted You are reading this latest preprint version Abstract Identity-centric access approaches are becoming fundamental to enable the management of highly dynamic users, services, and workloads in cloud computing environments. However, traditional access control systems are predominantly focused on static tokens, one-time authentication and coarse-grained authorization, which is not ideal to combat modern-day cloud attacks including leaking of credentials, abusing non-human identity, replay attack and lateral movement. In this paper we present an Adaptive Zero -Trust Cloud Access Security Protocol that is based on the concepts of continuous authentication and risk aware authorization applied to human and non-human identities in a cloud environment. The protocol leverages the Zero Trust model to ensure that each access request is cryptographically authenticated, corroborated with contextual security signals, and mathematically verified to present an acceptable risk. In this proposed work, a secure set of techniques for limiting disclosure of personal data so that access and identity are separate, while use of Proof-of-Possession tokens, Mutual Authentication and short-lived credentials mitigate impersonation and token misuse. This framework also ties together dynamic authorization with least-privilege enforcement, automatic credential revocation and optimized key rotation to minimize the effects of identity compromise. For accountability purposes all security-critical events are being recorded into an append-only audit log which is tamper-evident. Formal security of the protocol in the Random Oracle Model is presented, which shows that it can withstand impersonation, replay, man-in-the-middle and credential theft attacks. An informal security analysis also supports its resilience to insider threats and non-human identity violation. The theoretical foundations of strong cryptography combined with flexible risk evaluation and optimization driven approach allows the proposed approach to deliver improved cloud access security without sacrificing scalability and performance, thus being suitable even in large-scale and dynamic cloud settings. Physical sciences/Engineering Physical sciences/Mathematics and computing Zero Trust Security Cloud Access Control Identity Centric Security Continuous Authentication Risk Aware Authorization Cryptographic Protocol Random Oracle Model Full Text Additional Declarations No competing interests reported. Cite Share Download PDF Status: Posted Version 1 posted You are reading this latest preprint version Research Square lets you share your work early, gain feedback from the community, and start making changes to your manuscript prior to peer review in a journal. As a division of Research Square Company, we’re committed to making research communication faster, fairer, and more useful. We do this by developing innovative software and high quality services for the global research community. Our growing team is made up of researchers and industry professionals working together to solve the most critical problems facing scientific publishing. Also discoverable on Platform About Our Team In Review Editorial Policies Advisory Board Help Center Resources Author Services Accessibility API Access RSS feed Manage Cookie Preferences © Research Square 2026 | ISSN 2693-5015 (online) Privacy Policy Terms of Service Do Not Sell My Personal Information {"props":{"pageProps":{"initialData":{"identity":"rs-8922010","acceptedTermsAndConditions":true,"allowDirectSubmit":true,"archivedVersions":[],"articleType":"Article","associatedPublications":[],"authors":[{"id":614495461,"identity":"f961f9e2-2bcf-4dcd-a5eb-c31d1cc800d8","order_by":0,"name":"A Aswini","email":"","orcid":"","institution":"Vellore Institute of Technology","correspondingAuthor":false,"prefix":"","firstName":"A","middleName":"","lastName":"Aswini","suffix":""},{"id":614495462,"identity":"dab5e951-1b46-4e6f-aa61-e1f6d727fc08","order_by":1,"name":"S Prasanna","email":"data:image/png;base64,iVBORw0KGgoAAAANSUhEUgAAAZAAAAAyAQMAAABI0h/eAAAABlBMVEX///8AAABVwtN+AAAACXBIWXMAAA7EAAAOxAGVKw4bAAAA1UlEQVRIiWNgGAWjYFAD9gaGA2AGM9FaeA4wHDhAmhaJBAaoNQSA/Ozehx9/1NzJ45/5xvDwBwY7eQZ2Xvw6De4cN5bmOfasWOJ2jgHQYcmGDcx8Cfi1SKQxSDOwHU5suJ2WANTCnMDAzGOA32Ez0ph//vh3OHH+zWMgLfWEtTDcSGOT4G07nLjhBvMBoJbDhLUY3DnGZs3bdzhx45nkAwfOGBw3bCPosNltzDd/fDucOO/4weYPFRXV8vz8Zwg4TALVUgYGNvzqMbSMglEwCkbBKMACAGh0RtNsnOSnAAAAAElFTkSuQmCC","orcid":"","institution":"Vellore Institute of Technology","correspondingAuthor":true,"prefix":"","firstName":"S","middleName":"","lastName":"Prasanna","suffix":""}],"badges":[],"createdAt":"2026-02-20 03:39:17","currentVersionCode":1,"declarations":"","doi":"10.21203/rs.3.rs-8922010/v1","doiUrl":"https://doi.org/10.21203/rs.3.rs-8922010/v1","draftVersion":[],"editorialEvents":[],"editorialNote":"","failedWorkflow":false,"files":[{"id":107536634,"identity":"249c5131-3264-4b6e-9ce3-2c30816fd077","added_by":"auto","created_at":"2026-04-22 11:27:41","extension":"pdf","order_by":1,"title":"","display":"","copyAsset":false,"role":"manuscript-pdf","size":785579,"visible":true,"origin":"","legend":"","description":"","filename":"22PHD0504Paper21.pdf","url":"https://assets-eu.researchsquare.com/files/rs-8922010/v1_covered_43cedd8d-ca82-498b-9d9d-7cd972528473.pdf"}],"financialInterests":"No competing interests reported.","formattedTitle":"AZ – TAC Adaptive Zero Trust Access Control with Continuous Authentication for Secured Cloud Environments","fulltext":[],"fulltextSource":"","fullText":"","funders":[],"hasAdminPriorityOnWorkflow":false,"hasManuscriptDocX":false,"hasOptedInToPreprint":true,"hasPassedJournalQc":"","hasAnyPriority":false,"hideJournal":true,"highlight":"","institution":"","isAcceptedByJournal":false,"isAuthorSuppliedPdf":true,"isDeskRejected":"","isHiddenFromSearch":false,"isInQc":false,"isInWorkflow":false,"isPdf":true,"isPdfUpToDate":true,"isWithdrawnOrRetracted":false,"journal":{"display":true,"email":"[email protected]","identity":"researchsquare","isNatureJournal":false,"hasQc":true,"allowDirectSubmit":true,"externalIdentity":"","sideBox":"","snPcode":"","submissionUrl":"/submission","title":"Research Square","twitterHandle":"researchsquare","acdcEnabled":true,"dfaEnabled":false,"editorialSystem":"","reportingPortfolio":"","inReviewEnabled":false,"inReviewRevisionsEnabled":true},"keywords":"Zero Trust Security, Cloud Access Control, Identity Centric Security, Continuous Authentication, Risk Aware Authorization, Cryptographic Protocol Random Oracle Model","lastPublishedDoi":"10.21203/rs.3.rs-8922010/v1","lastPublishedDoiUrl":"https://doi.org/10.21203/rs.3.rs-8922010/v1","license":{"name":"CC BY 4.0","url":"https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/"},"manuscriptAbstract":"\u003cp\u003eIdentity-centric access approaches are\u0026ensp;becoming fundamental to enable the management of highly dynamic users, services, and workloads in cloud computing environments. However, traditional access control systems are predominantly focused on static tokens, one-time authentication and coarse-grained authorization,\u0026ensp;which is not ideal to combat modern-day cloud attacks including leaking of credentials, abusing non-human identity, replay attack and lateral movement. In this paper we present an Adaptive Zero -Trust Cloud Access Security Protocol that is based on the concepts of\u0026ensp;continuous authentication and risk aware authorization applied to human and non-human identities in a cloud environment. The protocol leverages the Zero Trust model to\u0026ensp;ensure that each access request is cryptographically authenticated, corroborated with contextual security signals, and mathematically verified to present an acceptable risk. In this proposed work, a secure set of techniques for limiting disclosure of personal data so that access and identity are separate, while use of Proof-of-Possession tokens, Mutual Authentication\u0026ensp;and short-lived credentials mitigate impersonation and token misuse. This framework also ties together dynamic authorization\u0026ensp;with least-privilege enforcement, automatic credential revocation and optimized key rotation to minimize the effects of identity compromise. For accountability purposes all security-critical events\u0026ensp;are being recorded into an append-only audit log which is tamper-evident. Formal security of the protocol\u0026ensp;in the Random Oracle Model is presented, which shows that it can withstand impersonation, replay, man-in-the-middle and credential theft attacks. An informal security analysis also\u0026ensp;supports its resilience to insider threats and non-human identity violation. The theoretical foundations of strong cryptography combined with flexible risk evaluation and optimization driven approach allows the proposed approach to deliver improved cloud access security without\u0026ensp;sacrificing scalability and performance, thus being suitable even in large-scale and dynamic cloud settings.\u003c/p\u003e","manuscriptTitle":"AZ – TAC Adaptive Zero Trust Access Control with Continuous Authentication for Secured Cloud Environments","msid":"","msnumber":"","nonDraftVersions":[{"code":1,"date":"2026-04-01 07:17:42","doi":"10.21203/rs.3.rs-8922010/v1","editorialEvents":[{"type":"communityComments","content":0}],"status":"published","journal":{"display":true,"email":"[email protected]","identity":"researchsquare","isNatureJournal":false,"hasQc":true,"allowDirectSubmit":true,"externalIdentity":"","sideBox":"","snPcode":"","submissionUrl":"/submission","title":"Research Square","twitterHandle":"researchsquare","acdcEnabled":true,"dfaEnabled":false,"editorialSystem":"","reportingPortfolio":"","inReviewEnabled":false,"inReviewRevisionsEnabled":true}}],"origin":"","ownerIdentity":"17932b28-8b64-4c01-9fc1-7f97201ce3a0","owner":[],"postedDate":"April 1st, 2026","published":true,"recentEditorialEvents":[],"rejectedJournal":[],"revision":"","amendment":"","status":"posted","subjectAreas":[{"id":65387227,"name":"Physical sciences/Engineering"},{"id":65387228,"name":"Physical sciences/Mathematics and computing"}],"tags":[],"updatedAt":"2026-04-22T11:26:34+00:00","versionOfRecord":[],"versionCreatedAt":"2026-04-01 07:17:42","video":"","vorDoi":"","vorDoiUrl":"","workflowStages":[]},"version":"v1","identity":"rs-8922010","journalConfig":"researchsquare"},"__N_SSP":true},"page":"/article/[identity]/[[...version]]","query":{"redirect":"/article/rs-8922010","identity":"rs-8922010","version":["v1"]},"buildId":"XKTyCvWXoU3ODBz1xrDgd","isFallback":false,"isExperimentalCompile":false,"dynamicIds":[84888],"gssp":true,"scriptLoader":[]}