Blockchain provides a decentralized framework for peer-to-peer networks' data and transaction management. The basic approach to the proposed system is to create a trustworthy and secure platform that enables doctors to safely store, access, and manage patients' private medical information while abiding by stringent privacy laws to protect patient confidentiality. Data that has been separated into blocks can be distributed because of to the decentralized system. Then, every block is shielded against hackers trying to change the data. All of the network's peers, or miners, or users, must validate each modification to the data using modern cryptography techniques. The SECURE - MEDSHARE system uses blockchain technology to store patient data from different hospitals in a decentralized and secure way, overcoming the limitations of local servers. In an era where data privacy and security are paramount, this Proposed System presents a pioneering solution leveraging blockchain technology for secure medical data sharing. The system's foundation relies on the decentralized nature of blockchain, implemented through Ethereum and Hardhat for robust smart contract deployment and management. Interactions occur via a user-friendly React frontend, integrating seamlessly with MetaMask for secure blockchain transactions. The Proposed System utilizes IPFS for decentralized file storage, ensuring data integrity and accessibility. Smart contracts play a pivotal role, orchestrating access controls and establishing a transparent framework for healthcare data sharing. This innovative approach promises heightened security, privacy, and efficiency in managing sensitive medical information, catering to the evolving needs of modern health care systems. The system's architecture and functionality align with the growing demand for reliable, decentralized solutions in data-sensitive domains, positioning it as a potential cornerstone in revolutionizing healthcare data management
K. Revathi, S Priyadharshini, R.A Rahul, Gnana Vignesh K · 6 authors
This research study introduces a blockchain-driven solution to revolutionize college credential verification. Addressing the inefficiencies and vulnerabilities of traditional verification methods, the proposed system utilizes blockchain's immutable ledger, smart contracts, and machine learning automation to ensure secure, transparent, and decentralized verification. Results demonstrate its efficacy in fraud prevention, streamlining processes, and providing a reliable, auditable verification platform. This research signifies a transformative shift towards a trustworthy, user-centric credential verification process with implications for students, institutions, and employers seeking streamlined, secure verification of academic records.
In this paper, we present a detailed approach and implementation to prove Ethereum full node using recursive SNARK, distributed general GKR and Groth16. Our protocol's name is Sisu whose architecture is based on distributed Virgo in zkBridge with some major improvements. Besides proving signature aggregation, we provide solutions to 2 hard problems in proving Ethereum full node: 1) any public key is valid under previous beacon state and 2) all public keys are pairwise distinct. Our solution does not require worker-to-worker communication and therefore reduce total worker-to-worker network traffic from terabyte of data to zero compared to zkBridge. This makes our approach suitable for emerging distributed prover markets and more decentralized compared to zkBridge. Our design is highly parallelable and capable of running on GPU for most parts.
The vulnerability of smart contracts has been demonstrated by an increasing number of multi-million exploitation incidents in public blockchains. Several works propose applying runtime verification to protect smart contracts post-deployment. However, none discuss the induced onchain overhead that may preclude its deployment, leaving smart contracts unprotected. A prominent solution to the onchain overhead is outsourcing the analysis off-chain. In this work, we analytically study the potential efficiency of off-chain smart contract runtime verification. We present a generic queueing network model of the off-chain runtime verification and the block generation process. The queuing model approach allows us to efficiently and flexibly capture the non-deterministic behavior of blockchain, estimating the number of transactions in the pool and their corresponding waiting times. We analyze the onchain overhead and evaluate off-chain RV, providing numerical indicators of transaction processing latency and throughput.
The current period of medicine using digital technology for patient care presents a new level of integration of monitoring devices with the cloud computing environment that enables the collection, storage and access to data in ways that were never possible earlier. As the obvious part of this development, it is worth noting that the objective of such innovation is mostly on the integrity of data, provenance and security. Data integrity from as well as security of the Internet connected healthcare devices should be assured in the first place to keep patient safety and protect data privacy along with improve data-based decision-making. The centralized system and crowded nature of the current equipment are susceptible to single point of failure, data breach and potential manipulations of data, which raise questions and create doubts with regards data management processes pertaining to medical device systems. This work is addressed to the analysis of a novel security system based on blockchain that guarantees the implementation of a high performance with the solution of two medical device integrity and provenance safety issues in the cloud ecosystem. Fundamentally differentiating from the centralized systems that exist today, blockchain technology that is based on distributed database architectures, immutable logs, and consensus mechanisms provides for a new way to bring reliability and traceability to the entire medical device data chain. The suggested procedure is based on properties of blockchain technology. Such a solution can help to provide a clear and secure audit trail for medical devices. Storing, securing and accessing the device data can be carried out credibly, maintaining these data’s integrity and provenance. Ultimately, the solution, rely on the implementation of smart contracts, cryptocurrency processes, and the confidentiality and privacy of data, can be the answer which make up the practice of secure data sharing, data accessing and complying with regulations. The journal creates a modular system combining Medical devices, a cloud platform, and Blockchain solution. The architecture is intended to display the blockchain network's essential components, data validation and access control, and secure data storage mechanisms. Furthermore, the recommended solution implies state-of- the-art security tools, such as data encryption, access control, and abidance by regulatory systems, including HIPAA and GDPR. Implementation of an actual scenario of the proof-of-concept and performance evaluation are done to show the efficiency and performance of the blockchain-based solution provided. The results suggest that the proposed solution can establish the data reliability level, record all the various versions of modifications, and strengthen the security and transparency of medical device data processing in cloud computing. Through the exploration of the applications of blockchain for medical data management that this study proposes, we are laying the foundations of a future healthcare environment, which is expected to be more secure and trustworthy, where the sensor data of medical devices can be reliably controlled and accessed without jeopardizing the patient's safety or data privacy. To a great extent, the suggested solution can contribute to building trust in the digital tools utilized in health care, leading to more well-informed clinical decisions and ultimately improving the patients' results.
In today's digital landscape, the exponential growth of big data demands secure and efficient processing, particularly in complex multi-cloud environments. This paper proposes an innovative blockchain-enabled data governance framework, revolutionizing data management, processing, and security across diverse cloud infrastructures. The framework integrates cutting-edge technologies, including the Ethereum blockchain, the InterPlanetary File System (IPFS) protocol, and cloud solutions like OpenStack and Red Hat OpenShift. At its core, the framework utilizes Ethereum's robust smart contracts and consensus mechanisms to establish a decentralized and secure data governance model. This ensures data integrity, transparency, and immutability, mitigating risks associated with centralized storage and processing. The IPFS protocol complements blockchain by offering efficient data sharding and retrieval mechanisms, enhancing data accessibility and fault tolerance in distributed cloud environments. Through comprehensive testing and analysis, the proposed framework's value is demonstrated. Performance metrics, including throughput, latency, CPU utilization, and memory utilization, were meticulously evaluated to assess system efficiency and scalability. Results indicate high performance, with Ethereum's Proof of Authority (PoA) consensus mechanism enabling efficient transaction throughput of up to 1000 transactions per second. Additionally, the IPFS protocol exhibits effective data retrieval capabilities, with an average latency of 15 milliseconds for data access operations.
Summary Cloud computing has attracted great interest in various scientific and technical fields recently as one of the widely adopted networking technologies. Despite their many benefits and applications, it still faces many security and trust challenges, including managing and controlling services, privacy, data integrity in distributed databases, data backup, and synchronization. Moreover, due to its centralized architecture, and lack of transparency and traceability, the results of the trust assessment cannot be fully recognized by all users. However, creating a trust‐based transaction environment has become its key factor. Blockchain, with its nature of decentralization and security, can be leveraged to address these challenges and build a distributed and decentralized trust architecture, due to the underlying characteristics such as transparency, traceability, decentralization, security, immutability, and automation. This article makes a comprehensive study of how blockchain is applied to deliver security services in the cloud computing model, focusing on up‐to‐date approaches, opportunities, and future directions. This survey also discusses the benefits of the technical fusion of blockchain and cloud. It provides a classification of proposed systems based on privacy, data sharing, authentication, and access control, as well as auditing and data integrity. Finally, the main conclusions of this study will be the challenges and future directions to stimulate further research in this promising field.
Verifiable encryption (VE) is a protocol where one can provide assurance that an encrypted plaintext satisfies certain properties, or relations. It is an important building block in cryptography with many useful applications, such as key escrow, group signatures, optimistic fair exchange, and others. However, the majority of previous VE schemes are restricted to instantiation with specific public-key encryption schemes or relations. In this work, we propose a novel framework that realizes VE protocols using zero-knowledge proof systems based on the MPC-in-the-head paradigm (Ishai et al. STOC 2007). Our generic compiler can turn a large class of zero-knowledge proofs into secure VE protocols for any secure public-key encryption scheme with the undeniability property, a notion that essentially guarantees binding of encryption when used as a commitment scheme. Our framework is versatile: because the circuit proven by the MPC-in-the-head prover is decoupled from a complex encryption function, the work of the prover is focused on proving the encrypted data satisfies the relation, not the proof of plaintext knowledge. Hence, our approach allows for instantiation with various combinations of properties about the encrypted data and encryption functions. We then consider concrete applications, to demonstrate the efficiency of our framework, by first giving a new approach and implementation to verifiably encrypt discrete logarithms in any prime order group more efficiently than was previously known. Then we give the first practical verifiable encryption scheme for AES keys with post-quantum security, along with an implementation and benchmarks.
Blockchain and zero-knowledge (ZK) proof techniques have advanced greatly in recent years, largely spurred by cryptocurrency development. They enable decentralized coordination of, and proofs of computational integrity in, the execution of privacy-preserving protocols.
The promise of combining blockchain with artificial intelligence (AI) is compelling: auditable data provenance for training sets, tamper-evident logging for model lifecycle events, decentralized marketplaces for models and datasets, and automated enforcement of usage policies via smart contracts. Yet organizations quickly discover that operationalizing blockchain-based AI goes beyond stitching together two popular technologies. Differences in trust assumptions, latency and throughput profiles, security primitives, compliance expectations, and tooling maturity frequently collide at deployment time. This manuscript organizes those frictions into a coherent integration problem space and proposes a reference architecture and evaluation methodology to reason about trade-offs. We review the literature on blockchain consensus and scalability, privacy-preserving machine learning (federated learning, differential privacy, secure computation, and zero-knowledge proofs), data governance and compliance (e.g., GDPR), and MLOps platforms. We then present a methodology that stress-tests seven integration dimensions: architecture and partitioning (on-chain vs. off-chain responsibilities), performance and cost (latency, throughput, gas), privacy and confidentiality (leakage risks and mitigations), security and integrity (tamper-evidence, oracle trust), interoperability (heterogeneous chains and toolchains), compliance and governance (auditability versus erasure rights), and human/organizational fit (DevOps, incident response, and skills).
Blockchain-enabled vault for evidence management systems have played an important role in the judicial system to provide an efficient, convenient, and secure access system over the cloud. Criminal record-keeping is a crucial aspect of law enforcement and judicial systems worldwide. Conventional approaches to criminal record storage are frequently plagued by security flaws, inefficiencies, and a lack of transparency. To achieve data integrity and privacy preservation, we proposed the Ethereum Blockchain to create the Vault. Building a Blockchain application on Ethereum ensures data integrity and security by employing three-factor authentication (password, OTP, and biometrics). The document will be stored on the Blockchain after the update from the judicial system and then stored in the Blockchain and Vault in an encrypted form. This application will ensure data integrity, authentication, and privacy preservation. The results show that the Blockchain-enabled Vault is a more secure way of managing, accessing, and protecting the criminal record that ensures data integrity and privacy. The suggested Vault is costeffective and can be easily integrated into Inter Planetary File System (IPFS) to maintain the necessary security challenges.
With the rapid proliferation of blockchain technology, Ethereum has emerged as a prominent platform for decentralised applications and smart contracts. Ensuring the integrity and reliability of the Ethereum network is paramount for its sustained success. This research introduces an innovative approach for approximating the trust levels of Ethereum nodes, which is crucial for maintaining the network's security and performance. Leveraging the Mamdani fuzzy model, this study proposes a comprehensive framework that evaluates trustworthiness by considering multiple parameters, including token count. Transaction count and Ether percentage held by Ethereum node user. These parameters are fuzzified and transformed into linguistic variables, then processed through a Mamdani Fuzzy Model. The model uses predefined linguistic rules and membership functions to assign a trust score to each node user.
INTRODUCTION: Data integrity protection has become a significant priority for both consumers and organizations as cloud storage alternatives have multiplied since they provide scalable solutions for individuals and organizations alike. Traditional cloud storage systems need to find new ways to increase security because they are prone to data modification and unauthorized access thus causing data breaches. OBJECTIVES: The main objective of this study is to review usage of smart contracts and blockchain technology to ensure data integrity in cloud storage. METHODS: . Case studies, performance evaluations, and a thorough literature review are all used to demonstrate the effectiveness of the suggested system. RESULTS: This research has unveiled a revolutionary approach that capitalizes on the fusion of smart contracts and cloud storage, fortified by blockchain technology. CONCLUSION: This theoretical analysis demonstrate that smart contracts offer a dependable and scalable mechanism for maintaining data integrity in cloud storage, opening up a promising area for further research and practical application.
With the widespread integration of artificial intelligence (AI) and blockchain technologies, safeguarding privacy has become of paramount importance. These techniques not only ensure the confidentiality of individuals' data but also maintain the integrity and reliability of information. This study offers an introductory overview of AI and blockchain, highlighting their fusion and the subsequent emergence of privacy protection methodologies. It explores various application contexts, such as data encryption, de-identification, multi-tier distributed ledgers, and k-anonymity techniques. Moreover, the paper critically evaluates five essential dimensions of privacy protection systems within AI-blockchain integration: authorization management, access control, data security, network integrity, and scalability. Additionally, it conducts a comprehensive analysis of existing shortcomings, identifying their root causes and suggesting corresponding remedies. The study categorizes and synthesizes privacy protection methodologies based on AI-blockchain application contexts and technical frameworks. In conclusion, it outlines prospective avenues for the evolution of privacy protection technologies resulting from the integration of AI and blockchain, emphasizing the need to enhance efficiency and security for a more comprehensive safeguarding of privacy.
Yang Shi, Yimin Li, T. Luo, Xiong Jiang · 6 authors
In cloud computing environments, virtual machines (VMs) running on cloud servers are vulnerable to shared cache attacks, such as Spectre and Foreshadow. By exploiting memory sharing among VMs, these attacks can compromise cryptographic keys in software modules. Program obfuscation serves as a promising countermeasure against key compromises by transforming a program into an unintelligent form while preserving its functionality. Unfortunately, for certain cryptographic algorithms such as the digital signature schemes, it is extremely difficult to construct provably secure obfuscators using traditional obfuscation approaches. To address such a challenge, this study proposes a novel approach to construct obfuscators for cryptographic algorithms named space-hard obfuscation, which can mitigate the threats from adversaries with the capability of acquiring a limited size of memory in shared cache attacks. Considering the extensive use of the Elliptic Curve Digital Signature Algorithm (ECDSA) in cloud-based Blockchain-as-a-Service (BaaS) and its potential vulnerability to shared cache attacks, we construct an exemplary scheme with provable security using space-hard obfuscation for ECDSA. Experimental results have demonstrated the scheme's high efficiency on cloud servers, as well as its successful integration with Hyperledger Fabric and Ethereum, two widely used blockchain systems.
Alaa Haddad, Mohamed Hadi Habaebi, Elfatih A. A. Elsheikh, Md. Rafiqul Islam · 6 authors
To secure sensitive medical records in the healthcare clouds, this paper proposes an End-to-End Encryption (E2EE) to enhance a patient-centric blockchain-based system for electronic health record (EHR) management. The suggested system with a focus on the patient enables individuals to oversee their medical records within various involved parties by authorizing or withdrawing permission for access to their records. Utilizing the inter-planetary file system (IPFS) for record storage is chosen due to its decentralized nature and its ability to guarantee the unchangeability of records. Then an E2EE enhancement maintains the medical data integrity using dual level-Hybrid encryption: symmetric Advanced Encryption Standard (AES) and asymmetric Elliptic Curve Cryptography (ECC) cryptographic techniques. The proposed system is implemented using the Ethereum blockchain system for EHR data sharing and integration utilizing a web-based interface for the patient and all users to initiate the EHR sharing transactions over the IPFS cloud. The proposed system performance is evaluated in a working system prototype. For different file sizes between 512 KB to 100 MB, the performance metrics used to evaluate the proposed system were the time consumed for generating key, encryption, and decryption. The results demonstrate the proposed system's superiority over other cutting-edge systems and its practical ability to share secure health data in cloud environments.
The blockchain is a technology that utilizes a decentralized and distributed ledger system to enhance security in cloud computing for distributed systems. It has gained significant attention in various applications, including the Internet of Things (IoT) and cloud computing. However, the blockchain has scalability limitations that restrict its ability to handle different types of transactions effectively. On the other hand, cloud computing provides the availability of shared computer system resources on demand, but it faces challenges related to automation, process management, policy, and others. By combining blockchain technology with cloud computing in a unified system, it is possible to improve data integrity, resource management, pricing, fair compensation, and resource allocation. This article examines the applications and challenges of blockchain, emphasizing how it ensures data integrity, transparency, and resistance to tampering. It also explores various use cases to address obstacles like scalability issues and interoperability concerns, providing a comprehensive overview of the intersection between blockchain, distributed systems, and cloud computing security. The integration of cloud computing and blockchain is important for business applications because it offers advantages in terms of privacy, security, and service support. This review provides an extensive and up-to-date summary of the integration of cloud computing and blockchain, highlighting its significance in business contexts.
Internet applications rely on Secure Socket Layer (SSL)/Transport Security Layer (TSL) certifications to establish secure communication. However, the centralized nature of certificate authorities (CAs) poses a risk, as malicious third parties could exploit the CA to issue fake certificates to malicious web servers, potentially compromising the privacy and integrity of user data. In this paper, we demonstrate how the utilization of decentralized certificate verification with blockchain technology can effectively address and mitigate such attacks. We present a decentralized public key infrastructure (PKI) based on a distributed trust model, e.g., Web of Trust (WoT) and blockchain technologies, to overcome vulnerabilities like single points of failure and to prevent tampering with existing certificates. In addition, our infrastructure establishes a trusted key-ring network that decouples the authentication process from CAs in order to enhance secure certificate issuance and accelerate the revocation process. Furthermore, as a proof of concept, we present the implementation of our proposed system in the Ethereum blockchain, confirming that the proposed framework meets the five identified requirements. Our experimental results demonstrate the effectiveness of our proposed system in practice, albeit with additional overhead compared to conventional PKIs.
Purpose This study aims to introduce and evaluate the COPULA framework, a construction project monitoring solution based on blockchain designed to address the inherent challenges of construction project monitoring and management. This research aims to enhance efficiency, transparency and trust within the dynamic and collaborative environment of the construction industry by leveraging the decentralized, secure and immutable nature of blockchain technology. Design/methodology/approach This paper employs a comprehensive approach encompassing the formulation of the COPULA model, the development of a digital solution using the ethereum blockchain and extensive testing to assess performance in terms of execution cost, time, integrity, immutability and security. A case analysis is conducted to demonstrate the practical application and benefits of blockchain technology in real-world construction project monitoring scenarios. Findings The findings reveal that the COPULA framework effectively addresses critical issues such as centralization, privacy and security vulnerabilities in construction project management. It facilitates seamless data exchange among stakeholders, ensuring real-time transparency and the creation of a tamper-proof communication channel. The framework demonstrates the potential to significantly enhance project efficiency and foster trust among all parties involved. Research limitations/implications While the study provides promising insights into the application of blockchain technology in construction project monitoring, future research could explore the integration of COPULA with existing project management methodologies to broaden its applicability and impact. Further investigations into the solution’s scalability and adaptation to various construction project types and sizes are also suggested. Originality/value This research offers a comprehensive blockchain solution specifically tailored for the construction industry. Unlike prior studies focusing on theoretical aspects, this paper presents a practical, end-to-end solution encompassing model formulation, digital implementation, proof-of-concept testing and validation analysis. The COPULA framework marks a significant advancement in the digital transformation of construction project monitoring, providing a novel approach to overcoming longstanding industry challenges.
Santiago Martínez, Agustín Ameigenda, Braian De Barros, Guzmán Llambías · 6 authors
Zero-knowledge proofs (zkp) have been used to improve several blockchain limitations (e.g. privacy, scalability), and recent work proposed its usage to improve blockchain interoperability solutions in certain scenarios. However, more studies are needed to understand the full potential of zkp in this context. In particular, zkp may improve existing blockchain interoperability solutions, and help software architects and developers to reduce barriers for blockchain adoption. In this paper, we empirically analyse how zkp may improve a gateway-based interoperability solution. The results showed that it was possible to improve the selected solution and incorporate anonymous cross-chain authentication and private data exchange. A prototype was developed and evaluated using three strategies: 1) its application in a use case scenario, 2) performance tests, and 3) cost analysis. The evaluation showed that the approach is technically feasible, but not suitable for every use case. Furthermore, the private data exchange approach confirmed the results of other studies: zkp is not mature enough for some scenarios, and more work needs to be performed.