Intelligent Solutions for Secure Communication and Collaboration Based on Cloud Technologies The market with data and information is constantly increasing, changing requirements for functionality, technical parameters for storage or transmission capacities. Naturally, topics such as safety, quality, flexibility, productivity, or optimal costs are discussed. For this purpose, the market offers a wide range of intelligent or less progressive technologies and solutions. Because such solutions are very complex with a large number of variables. The users are looking for independent comparisons that can deliver the required answers and recommendations. We respond with our contribution to market requirements and try to answer the questions of the owners and users of the data. We present the results of testing intelligent solutions based on cloud technologies, their advantages and disadvantages. We then present a set of recommendations that are related to secure communication, collaboration and data storage. The outcomes of this contribution will find application in a wide range of institutions, but especially in SMEs or for individuals who are aware of the value of their data and the possible risks associated with their estrangement. These recommendations are platform independent and are for general use.

Vallum: Privacy, Confidentiality and Access Controlfor Sensitive Data in Cloud Environments Managing sensitive data in shared environments such as public clouds is an enduring challenge. While several approaches exist to protect data at rest such as endtoend encryption, there exist only a few solutions such as homomorphic encryption that offer secure data processing. Unfortunately, these solutions cannot be used in practice as they incur nonnegligible runtime overheads and security risks. Moreover, as the majority of data management systems were designed to operate in private cloud environments, which are under the control of the data owner, they often lack appropriate mechanisms for access control as well as privacy assurance. In this paper we propose Vallum, a data access and protection layer that closes these gaps while enabling users to operate data management systems in shared environments such securely as public clouds. Vallum utilizes Intel SGX and remote attestation to ensure confidentiality and integrity of the data being stored and processed. Furthermore, it provides access protection and privacy assurance through a extensible architecture. Our performance evaluation indicates that the overhead introduced by Vallum makes it viable to be deployed in cloud infrastructures.