Preserving Data Secrecy and Integrity for Cloud Storage Using Smart Contracts and Cryptographic Primitives

Abstract

Cloud computing has emerged as a viable alternative to traditional computing infrastructures, offering various benefits. However, the adoption of cloud storage poses significant risks to data secrecy and integrity. This article presents an effective mechanism to preserve the secrecy and integrity of data stored on the public cloud by leveraging blockchain technology, smart contracts, and cryptographic primitives. The proposed approach utilizes a Solidity-based smart contract as an auditor for maintaining and verifying the integrity of outsourced data. To preserve data secrecy, symmetric encryption systems are employed to encrypt user data before outsourcing it. An extensive performance analysis is conducted to illustrate the efficiency of the proposed mechanism. Additionally, a rigorous assessment is conducted to ensure that the developed smart contract is free from vulnerabilities and to measure its associated running costs. The security analysis of the proposed system confirms that our approach can securely maintain the confidentiality and integrity of cloud storage, even in the presence of malicious entities. The proposed mechanism contributes to enhancing data security in cloud computing environments and can be used as a foundation for developing more secure cloud storage systems.