ISSN: 2222-6990
Open access
Cloud computing has become the backbone of digital infrastructure, but protecting sensitive data while enabling efficient processing remains a major challenge. This paper benchmarks advanced encryption techniques—AES-256, RSA-2048, Homomorphic Encryption, Format-Preserving Encryption (FPE), and ChaCha20—across structured, semi-structured, and unstructured healthcare datasets in cloud environments. Using MIMIC-IV data and simulated attack scenarios, we evaluate encryption performance (speed, CPU/memory use) and resilience (brute force, side-channel, and MITM resistance). Results show AES-256 offers high throughput with low resource cost, RSA-2048 ensures secure key exchange, Homomorphic Encryption provides strong privacy at high computational expense, and FPE maintains legacy compatibility. ChaCha20 delivers both speed and consistency, making it a lightweight option. While compliance frameworks such as GDPR, HIPAA, and CCPA motivate the adoption of strong encryption, our findings confirm that no single method satisfies all cloud requirements. A hybrid, use-case-specific encryption strategy is essential for privacy-preserving healthcare cloud adoption.
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