Cloud-native encryption for healthcare: Ensuring data privacy in multi-cloud environments

The healthcare industry in the current generation has embraced the use of cloud technologies in delivering services with improved efficiency, scalability, and flexibility. However, the increasing adoption of multi-cloud architectures is not without several challenges, primarily concerning data privacy within healthcare systems that handle patient information. This paper presents a flexible cloud-optimized encryption system specific to the healthcare sector within the multi-cloud environment. The architecture also uses complex cryptography such as Attribute-Based Encryption (ABE), homomorphic encryption, and modularized key management systems. The paper discusses the effects of different encryption methods on data confidentiality, storage and retrieval, accessibility, and system performance in AWS, Microsoft Azure, and Google Cloud Platform (GCP). This paper describes a multi-layer security model at the storage, application, and network level to guarantee end-to-end data security. The new solution also involves; With regards to identity federation, there is a need to ensure security when implementing a cloud framework that involves multiple vendors. Here, evaluation criteria include encryption/decryption time, data transfer rate, and the overhead cost associated with the operation and management of keys and security policies to heed healthcare standards. Performance results from a simulated healthcare application that we have built confirm that our solution delivers better privacy security without significant efficiency compromises; this confirms the possibility of cloud-native encryption as one of the key foundations for securing health data in a multi-cloud environment.