A smart contract is a concept of computer protocols that helps to facilitate blockchain technology. This blockchain-based smart contract is a public ledger of all participating transactions. It is considered a self-executable application and contains predetermined rules. It also operates by decentralizing networks that are shared between all parties, and this execution of contracts between parties could be securely done without a middleman or a third party. With blockchain technology, developers could provide an efficient framework and ensure security issues. While the new blockchain has successfully been developed to prevent the problems of fraud and hacking, there is still a considerable risk concerning security and confidentiality. Therefore, we should not underestimate this matter. This study aims to review the potential risks that may take place on blockchain-based smart contracts. In addition, the options that may assist application developers in order to provide viable guidance, and to avoiding these security vulnerabilities.
Reza Aria, Norm Archer, Moein Khanlari, Bharat Shah
This paper summarizes the work of many different authors, industries, and countries by introducing important and influential factors that will help in the development, successful adoption, and sustainable use of the Web3/metaverse and its applications. We introduce a few important factors derived from the current state-of-the-art literature, including four essential elements including (1) appropriate decentralization, (2) good user experience, (3) appropriate translation and synchronization to the real world, and (4) a viable economy, which are required for appropriate implementation of a metaverse and its applications. The future of Web3 is all about decentralization, and blockchain can play a significant part in the development of the Metaverse. This paper also sheds light on some of the most relevant open issues and challenges currently facing the Web3/metaverse and its applications, with the hope that this discourse will help to encourage the development of appropriate solutions.
The two main forms of healthcare data exchange among entities are business-to-business (B2B) and business-to-customer (B2C). The former uses the electronic data interchange (EDI) technology between healthcare institutions, while the latter is usually conducted by providing web-based interfaces for patients. This research argues that both forms have inherent security and privacy weaknesses. Furthermore, patients lack appropriate transparency and control over their own Personally Identifiable Information (PII). We explore the issues of medical record exchange, analyze them and suggest appropriate solutions in the form of a new model to mitigate them. The vulnerabilities, ranging from critical to minor, include the possibility of Man-in-The-Middle (MiTM) and supply chain attacks, weak cryptography, repudiable transactions, single points of failure (SPOF), and poor access controls. A novel model will be presented in this research for healthcare data sharing which applies the best security practices. The proposed unified model will counter the listed vulnerabilities. It automates the healthcare processes in decentralized architecture by utilizing the smart contracts for B2C transactions such as medicine purchase. The model is based on the Blockchain and zero-knowledge proofs. It is made with novel controls which represent the latest advancements in cybersecurity. It has the potential of setting a new cornerstone.
Michael G. Xevgenis, Dimitrios G. Kogias, Panagiotis Karkazis, Helen C. Leligou
Undoubtedly, we are witnessing a new era of computer networks that aspire to support modern demanding applications by providing the highest Quality of Experience (QoE) to the end user. Next Generations Networks (NGNs) ensure that characteristics such as ultra-low latency, high availability and wide service coverage can be met across the network regardless of the network infrastructure ownership. To accomplish that, beyond the necessary improvements in the radio propagation field, changes have been made in the core network functions which are now characterized as programmable, and software defined. Software Defined Networks (SDNs) and Network Function Virtualization (NFV) are the keystones of the NGNs flexibility. The high expectations of NGNs’ performance and the continuous changes in the network conditions lead to the development of new network management frameworks that add elasticity and dynamicity and minimize human intervention. ETSI (the European Standards Organization) presents the Zero-touch Service Management (ZSM) framework that uses hyped technologies such as Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML) to achieve full end-to-end automation of the network services’ management across one or many different domains. Focusing on multi-domain network service management, there are several security issues identified by the standardization team which mostly derive from the lack of trust among network providers. In the present research, we explore the suitability of blockchain technology adoption for facing these security issues. Blockchain technology inherently addresses security in trustless environments such as the infrastructures defined by the ZSM team. Our contribution is three-fold: (a) we define the architecture of a multi-domain network infrastructure that adopts the ZSM approach and integrates blockchain functionality, (b) we explore the adoption of different blockchain and distributed ledger technologies (DLT) approaches to address ZSM security needs and (c) we provide guidelines to prospective solution designers/implementers on the detailed requirements that this solution has to meet to maximize the offered value.
As the healthcare industry increasingly relies on digital technology and the Internet of Things (IoT) to improve patient care and streamline operations, the vulnerability to ransomware attacks has become a significant concern. In response to this pressing issue, we present SFMR-SH (Secure Framework for Mitigating Ransomware Attacks in Smart Healthcare), a groundbreaking approach that integrates IoT devices with blockchain technology to fortify healthcare data security. SFMR-SH leverages blockchain's inherent properties, including immutability and transparency, to create an impervious fortress for sensitive patient data. Through comprehensive simulations employing machine learning algorithms (KNN, SVM, Random Forest, Gradient Boosting, and XGB), we assess the framework's ability to detect and mitigate ransomware attacks. Results underscore the framework's effectiveness, achieving an impressive detection accuracy of 99.33%. This research represents a significant stride in fortifying smart healthcare systems, providing a secure environment amid the escalating threat landscape, and ensuring the uninterrupted delivery of vital healthcare services. Our findings highlight the exceptional promise of SFMR-SH in revolutionizing healthcare data security, safeguarding patient privacy, and fortifying the future of smart healthcare systems in an increasingly digitalized healthcare landscape.
Abstract: Blockchain allows users and data providers to ensure authentication, authorization and data validity with proper multi-key exchange authentication for user identity and hash key for Blockchain so that the data is not just stored but also validated each time the user access. In this paper, we apply Zero Knowledge proof to a Strong rooms using RFID Card reader and Camera module IoT systems to prove that a prover without disclosing information such as public key enhances the anonymity of Blockchain
In the IoT (Internet of Things) environment, the existing access control schemes for device resources have some problems, such as poor scalability, high latency, security, and dynamics. Combining the advantages of the permissioned blockchain and edge computing, an access control scheme for the Internet of Things based on the permissioned blockchain and edge computing is proposed. By authenticating the user’s identity at the edge, the user’s identity is reliable and the response time is improved. In the ABAC (Attribute Based Access Control) model, the blockchain is regarded as a trusted entity, and the access control policy is written into a smart contract and deployed on the blockchain for calling. Most of the existing consensus algorithms have the problems of low throughput and scalability. A Kraft (Kademlia–Raft) consensus algorithm is introduced to solve the above issues. Security analysis and experimental results show that the scheme can achieve fine-grained, dynamic access control, has high throughput and low latency, and ensures security and reliability.
Jing Huey Khor, Michail Sidorov, Seri Aathira Balqis Zulqarnain
Scalability prevents public blockchains from being widely adopted for Internet of Things (IoT) applications such as supply chain management. Several existing solutions focus on increasing the transaction count, but none of them address scalability challenges introduced by resource-constrained IoT device integration with these blockchains, especially for the purpose of supply chain ownership management. Thus, this paper solves the issue by proposing a scalable public blockchain-based protocol for the interoperable ownership transfer of tagged goods, suitable for use with resource-constrained IoT devices such as widely used Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) tags. The use of a public blockchain is crucial for the proposed solution as it is essential to enable transparent ownership data transfer, guarantee data integrity, and provide on-chain data required for the protocol. A decentralized web application developed using the Ethereum blockchain and an InterPlanetary File System is used to prove the validity of the proposed lightweight protocol. A detailed security analysis is conducted to verify that the proposed lightweight protocol is secure from key disclosure, replay, man-in-the-middle, de-synchronization, and tracking attacks. The proposed scalable protocol is proven to support secure data transfer among resource-constrained RFID tags while being cost-effective at the same time.
Today, blockchain technology is playing a vital role in the professional world as one of the most important discoveries and creative developments. Blockchain technology is continuously advancing and revolutionizing our society. An overview of blockchain technology is presented in this paper. The blockchain is a distributed ledger technology that allows different transactions and operations to be recorded in a chain of blocks without requiring a third party. A growing number of businesses and industrial communities are exploring blockchain technology as a technological option. In the last decade, blockchain technology has completely changed the paradigm of computer applications. Blockchain was created with the vision of creating an immutable, confidential, open-source, decentralized P2P network located on a decentralized network to facilitate data sharing. An overview of blockchain applications in different areas is presented. We provide a timely summary of blockchain research for individuals and organizations interested in this field. This paper presents an overview of blockchain technology, listing all the key characteristics, benefits, and features which make blockchain technology both superior and unique. We also discuss popular consensus protocols and taxonomy for blockchain systems.
Shadab Alam, Surbhi Bhatia, Mohammed Shuaib, Mousa Mohammed Khubrani · 7 authors
The Internet of Things (IoT) and blockchain (BC) are reliable technologies widely employed in various contexts. IoT devices have a lot of potential for data sensing and recording without human intervention, but they also have processing and security issues. Due to their limited computing power, IoT devices cannot use specialized cryptographic security mechanisms. There are various challenges when using traditional cryptographic techniques to transport and store medical records securely. The general public’s health depends on having an electronic health record (EHR) system that is current. In the era of e-health and m-health, problems with integrating data from various EHRs, preserving data interoperability, and ensuring that all data access is in the patient’s hands are all obstacles to creating a dependable EHR system. If health records get into the wrong hands, they could endanger the lives of patients and their right to privacy. BC technology has become a potent tool for ensuring recorded data’s immutability, validity, and confidentiality while enabling decentralized storage. This study focuses on EHR and other types of e-healthcare, evaluating the advantages of complementary technologies and the underlying functional principles. The major BC consensus mechanisms for BC-based EHR systems are analyzed in this study. It also examines several IoT-EHR frameworks’ current infrastructures. A breakdown of BC integration’s benefits with the IoT-EHR framework is also offered. A BC-based IoT-EHR architecture has been developed to enable the automated sensing of patient records and to store and retrieve these records in a secure and reliable environment. Finally, we conduct a security study to demonstrate the security of our suggested EHR framework.
Web 3.0 pursues the establishment of decentralized ecosystems based on blockchain technologies to drive the digital transformation of physical commerce and governance. Through consensus algorithms and smart contracts in blockchain, which are based on cryptography technologies, digital identity, digital asset management, decentralized autonomous organization, and decentralized finance are realized for secure and transparent digital economy services in Web 3.0 for promoting the integration of digital and physical economies. With the rapid realization of quantum devices, Web 3.0 is being developed in parallel with the deployment of quantum cloud computing and quantum Internet. In this regard, quantum computing first disrupts the original cryptographic systems that protect data security while reshaping modern cryptography with the advantages of quantum computing and communication. Therefore, this survey provides a comprehensive overview of blockchain-based Web 3.0 and its quantum and post-quantum enhancement from the ambilateral perspective. On the one hand, some post-quantum migration methods, and anti-quantum signatures offer potential ways to achieve unforgeable security under quantum attack for the internal technologies of blockchain. On the other hand, some quantum/post-quantum encryption and verification algorithms improve the external performance of the blockchain, enabling a decentralized, valuable, secure blockchain system. Finally, we discuss the future directions toward developing a provable secure decentralized digital ecosystem.
Wensheng Gan, Zhenqiang Ye, Shicheng Wan, Philip S. Yu
With the rapid growth of the Internet, human daily life has become deeply bound to the Internet. To take advantage of massive amounts of data and information on the internet, the Web architecture is continuously being reinvented and upgraded. From the static informative characteristics of Web 1.0 to the dynamic interactive features of Web 2.0, scholars and engineers have worked hard to make the internet world more open, inclusive, and equal. Indeed, the next generation of Web evolution (i.e., Web 3.0) is already coming and shaping our lives. Web 3.0 is a decentralized Web architecture that is more intelligent and safer than before. The risks and ruin posed by monopolists or criminals will be greatly reduced by a complete reconstruction of the Internet and IT infrastructure. In a word, Web 3.0 is capable of addressing web data ownership according to distributed technology. It will optimize the internet world from the perspectives of economy, culture, and technology. Then it promotes novel content production methods, organizational structures, and economic forms. However, Web 3.0 is not mature and is now being disputed. Herein, this paper presents a comprehensive survey of Web 3.0, with a focus on current technologies, challenges, opportunities, and outlook. This article first introduces a brief overview of the history of World Wide Web as well as several differences among Web 1.0, Web 2.0, Web 3.0, and Web3. Then, some technical implementations of Web 3.0 are illustrated in detail. We discuss the revolution and benefits that Web 3.0 brings. Finally, we explore several challenges and issues in this promising area.
Cesar Munoz-Ausecha, Jorge Gómez Gómez, Juan Ruiz-Rosero, Gustavo Ramírez-González
In the present, many organizations grow on a daily basis, using many assets to perform their activities and generate profit. In large organizations, all of these assets must be managed, occasionally leading to challenges depending on the organization’s size. For this reason, the role of asset custodian is needed. This role entails assigning the fixed assets to one person for their care, maintenance, and safekeeping. In this process, it is necessary to update information in the central system, leading to further administrative processes, which, in the majority of cases, are carried out through traditional methods. This involves time to obtain wet signatures, a great deal of paperwork, and time for the person or people in charge to update the information. Due to these reasons, the process can be updated partially or entirely to use digital means in order to solve the mentioned inconveniences. This paper presents a proof-of-concept system to offer a modernized and practical solution to this problem using the advantages of blockchain technology, and speeding up the process by using assets identified with UHF RFID technology to permit the reading of many tags that can be embedded and hidden with no need for line-of-sight, allowing fast ownership transfer, using smart contracts in the Ethereum private blockchain.
The integration of sensor nodes with public blockchains is possible with the help of low-power communication networks that use Bluetooth low energy and long range. However, power-consuming Wi-Fi is still the main means of communication for the existing sensor nodes, especially in urban environments. Typically high power consumption, private key disclosure, and high transaction fees are the issues that prevent battery-powered sensor nodes from being integrated with a public blockchain. Therefore, this article proposes a data protection protocol that is able to secure the data integrity of the stored sensor data, help to reduce transaction fees, and prolong battery life for IoT devices that are used with public blockchain networks. A proof of concept is presented using an ESP32S2 device to evaluate and verify the performance of the proposed data storage protocol. A smart contract is designed and analyzed using a formal smart contract analysis tool. A decentralized Web application is designed to display and verify the sensor data extracted from the public blockchain. The power consumption, memory usage, and security of the proposed solution are evaluated. The evaluation results show that data integrity can be achieved even for low-power sensor nodes that connect to public blockchains via Wi-Fi network.
P. Chinnasamy, Ashwag Albakri, Mudassir Khan, A. Ambeth Raja · 6 authors
Healthcare comprises the largest revenue and data boom markets. Sharing knowledge about healthcare is crucial for research that can help healthcare providers and patients. Several cloud-based applications have been suggested for data sharing in healthcare. However, the trustworthiness of third-party cloud providers remains unclear. The third-party dependency problem was resolved using blockchain technology. The primary objective of this growth was to replace the distributed system with a centralized one. Therefore, security is a critical requirement for protecting health records. Efforts have been made to implement blockchain technology to improve the security of this sensitive material. However, existing methods depend primarily on information obtained from medical examinations. Furthermore, they are ineffective for sharing continuously produced data streams from sensors and other monitoring devices. We propose a trustworthy access control system that uses smart contracts to achieve greater security while sharing electronic health records among various patients and healthcare providers. Our concept offers an active resolution for secure data sharing in mobility computing while protecting personal health information from potential risks. In assessing existing data sharing models, the framework valuation and protection approach recognizes increases in the practicality of lightweight access control architecture, low network expectancy, and significant levels of security and data concealment.
Joāo Otávio Chervinski, Diego Kreutz, Xiwei Xu, Jiangshan Yu
With the increasing demand for communication between blockchains, improving the performance of cross-chain communication protocols becomes an emerging challenge. We take a first step towards analyzing the limitations of cross-chain communication protocols by comprehensively evaluating Cosmos Network's Inter-Blockchain Communication Protocol. To achieve our goal we introduce a novel framework to guide empirical evaluations of cross-chain communication protocols. We implement an instance of our framework as a tool to evaluate the IBC protocol. Our findings highlight several challenges, such as high transaction confirmation latency, bottlenecks in the blockchain's RPC implementation and concurrency issues that hinder the scalability of the cross-chain message relayer. We also demonstrate how to reduce the time required to complete cross-chain transfers by up to 70% when submitting large amounts of transfers. Finally, we discuss challenges faced during deployment with the objective of contributing to the development and advancement of cross-chain communication.
Christian Berger, Signe Schwarz-Rüsch, Arne Vogel, Kai Bleeke · 7 authors
With the advancement of blockchain systems, many recent research works have proposed distributed ledger technology~(DLT) that employs Byzantine fault-tolerant~(BFT) consensus protocols to decide which block to append next to the ledger. Notably, BFT consensus can offer high performance, energy efficiency, and provable correctness properties, and it is thus considered a promising building block for creating highly resilient and performant blockchain infrastructures. Yet, a major ongoing challenge is to make BFT consensus applicable to large-scale environments. A large body of recent work addresses this challenge by developing novel ideas to improve the scalability of BFT consensus, thus opening the path for a new generation of BFT protocols tailored to the needs of blockchain. In this survey, we create a systematization of knowledge about the novel scalability-enhancing techniques that state-of-the-art BFT consensus protocols use. For our comparison, we closely analyze the efforts, assumptions, and trade-offs these protocols make.
The combination of blockchain and internet of things (IoT) technology realizes reliable storage of IoT data. However, the data stored on the blockchain (on-chain) face the problem of poor scalability and inefficient retrieval. In this paper, the on-chain data scalability schemes based on transactions and smart contracts are first proposed. Subsequently, on the basis of the above on-chain data scalability scheme based on transactions, an on-chain data index based on skip lists is proposed to improve the retrieval efficiency. The experimental results show that both the on-chain data scalability schemes achieve on-chain data scalability while reducing storage overhead. Meanwhile, the on-chain data index based on skip lists has significantly improved dynamic range retrieval efficiency and reduced the time complexity of single data retrieval to O(log(n)).
Kashif Mehboob Khan, Aabira Fahim, Darakhshan M. Saleem, Marvi Jokhio
With the emerging employment of blockchains in different fields a need for blockchain intercommunication has arisen but there is no set standard yet for blockchain development, adoption and implementation due to which its interoperability has become a challenge. Interoperability refers to the mechanism of exchange and utilization of information between two software or computer systems etc. In blockchain, interoperability is the process of data creation, transfer and storage between two blockchains or blockchain applications. Blockchain interoperability is complex as every blockchain may have a different implementation platform and protocol for consensus mechanism. Bringing together two different blockchains and enabling communication between them without modifying their underlying implementation structure is a challenge today. There has been ongoing research in this domain to achieve interoperability in blockchains effectively. Its importance is evident from the fact that blockchain interoperability is vital for promoting scalability which is another research challenge presently. Apart from this, blockchain interoperability also promotes data privacy, application flexibility and portability and provides new opportunities in business. In this paper we have discussed in detail the three approaches and the solutions they provide for implementing blockchain interoperability. An empirical based analysis has been used to strengthen our methodology, which takes into consideration the selection of known & established blockchain network with state-of-the-art tools and technology. In order to have seamless communication across different chains, light clients (representing the respective chain) have been enabled to store each other’s information such as protocol version etc. In this way, the handshake between both the chain has resulted in a successful IBC (Inter Blockchain Communication) inside the Cosmos environment. It is concluded that although blockchain interoperability is being implemented today, this implementation is highly restricted to specific organizations or software tools. Moreover interoperability between two different blockchains is still an ongoing challenge. This study will assist the future work in the domain of blockchain interoperability as it makes the understanding and implementation of blockchain interoperability easier.
Blockchain is one of the most recent disrupting technologies. Since Bitcoin emerged as its initial application, many blockchain projects arose offering different features for general and domain specific scenarios. In turn, Blockchain platforms work as isolated environments and they do not support interaction (i.e. interoperability) between each other.During the last years, some academic and industry efforts were performed in order to achieve interoperability between blockchain platforms. However, these efforts solve specific use cases and do not provide a general interoperability solution. In order to organize existing work in the area, this paper provides a feature-based classification framework based on 16 key interoperability features, that enabled the classification of 65 academic papers in three categories and six subcategories.The results show that nowadays research is focused on public interoperability, while private and public-to-private interoperability are still on their first steps. Based on these results, this work also discusses nowadays blockchain interoperability landscape, identifies challenges, and suggests future research directions.
The rise of Internet-of-Things enables the development of smart applications devoted to improving the quality of life in urban and rural areas, thus fostering the creation of smart territories. However, some dislocated areas are underprivileged in providing such services due to the lack, inefficiency, or excessive cost of Internet access. Opportunistic networking techniques might aid in surmounting these problems. In this article, we propose a framework that relies on an untrusted Data Mule to carry data from an offline source to an online destination. In particular, we present a framework that enables the communication between different actors and a reward mechanism using Distributed Ledger Technologies, Smart Contracts, and Decentralized File Storage. The protocol involved in bringing a Client’s message online and getting back a response is thoroughly explained in all its steps and then discussed on the most important trust and security issues. Finally, we evaluate such a protocol and the whole framework through a series of communication latency tests, an analysis of the Smart Contract usage, and simulations in which buses act as Data Mules. Our results suggest the feasibility of our proposal in a smart territory scenario.
Asif Ali Wagan, Abdullah Ayub Khan, Yen‐Lin Chen, Lip Yee Por · 6 authors
Game-based learning in schools and colleges, with the help of AI-enabled augmented intelligence techniques, is reported to improve children’s neurodevelopment, intellectual sensing, and specific learning abilities, according to US officials. There is currently a huge transformation from traditional assisted learning to augmented reality-enabled computer-based learning. Globally, there has been a dramatic increase in the use of game-based augmented learning in most schools and colleges. A few problems arise that create concern, such as the emerging effects of gaming on institutional premises, the disordering of children’s involvement after game-learning, the rate of learning and attendance, adaptation, and teachers’ experience. To address these individual aspects, we proposed a blockchain Ethereum-enabled, secure AI-based augmented game learning environment, called B-AIQoE, in which protected on-chain and off-chain channels are designed to handle all the transactions and exchanges among students before analysis in terms of color transition, redundancy, unethical transmission, and related vulnerabilities. On the other hand, the proposed system examines and analyzes the Quality of experience (QoE) and improves accessibility as it receives feedback from the students and teachers. For the purpose of automating game-based transactions, three different aspects are discussed, such as verifying and validating student-teacher registration, creating content for game-based learning and privacy, and updating students’ records and exchanges. Finally, this paper separates, analyzes, and discusses a list of emerging challenges and limitations and their possible solutions involved in creating the proposed system.