Cloud computing stores consumer data on third-party servers and provides high-quality, high-performance services. Innovative cloud computing offers flexible infrastructure and simple access, but security challenges persist. Blockchain design uses distributed ledgers to store transaction information across network nodes. Consensus processes verify all system transactions and prevent data changes. Literature study and bibliometric assessment are used to evaluate blockchain-based authentication methods from 2018 to 2023. We evaluate the amount and quality of empirical evidence on blockchain-based authentication and access control solutions. The experts believed that this study topic is vital and may assist future scholars in connecting information and technology. This research may interest blockchain technology researchers and practitioners interested in notable people, subjects, and historical events. Journal articles, conference papers, and book chapters have a worldwide impact on research communities, according to this bibliometric analysis. R bibliometric studies and their methods are described in this article. Visualization clarifies many cloud authentication research topics.
We present the Layered Merkle Patricia Trie (LMPT), a performant storage data structure for processing transactions in high-throughput systems when compared to traditional Merkle Patricia Tries used in Ethereum clients. LMPTs keep smaller intermediary tries in memory to alleviate read and write amplification from high-latency disk storage. As an additional feat, they also allow for the I/O and transaction verifier threads to be scheduled in parallel and independently. LMPTs can ultimately reduce significant I/O traffic that happens on the critical path of transaction processing. Empirical results show that LMPTs can process up to$\times6$more transactions per second on real-life ERC20 smart contract workloads when compared to existing Ethereum clients.
Rafael Belchior, Dimo Dimov, Zahary Karadjov, Jonas Pfannschmidt · 6 authors
The field of blockchain interoperability plays a pivotal role in blockchain adoption. Despite these advances, a notorious problem persists: the high number and success rate of attacks on blockchain bridges. We propose Harmonia, a framework for building robust, secure, efficient, and decentralized cross-chain applications. A main component of Harmonia is DendrETH, a decentralized and efficient zero-knowledge proof-based light client. DendrETH mitigates security problems by lowering the attack surface by relying on the properties of zero-knowledge proofs. The DendrETH instance of this paper is an improvement of Ethereum’s light client sync protocol that fixes critical security flaws. This light client protocol is implemented as a smart contract, allowing blockchains to read the state of the source blockchain in a trust-minimized way. Harmonia and DendrETH support several cross-chain use cases, such as secure cross-blockchain bridges (asset transfers) and smart contract migrations (data transfers), without a trusted operator. We implemented Harmonia in 9K lines of code. Our implementation is compatible with the Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) based chains and some non-EVM chains. Our experimental evaluation shows that Harmonia can generate light client updates with reasonable latency, costs (a dozen to a few thousand US dollars per year), and minimal storage requirements (around 4.5 MB per year). We also carried out experiments to evaluate the security of DendrETH. We provide an open-source implementation and reproducible environment for researchers and practitioners to replicate our results.
Background. To ensure the protection of the biometric access control system used in unsecured communication channels, it is necessary to exclude the storage and transfer, transfer of biometric data as well as sequences generated on their basis. The paper proposes a cryptographic protocol of two-factor authentication with the zero-knowledge over the extended field GF(2m) on elliptic curves using biometric data and the private key of the user. Objective. The aim of the article is to develop a cryptographic protocol for zero-knowledge two-factor authentication based on elliptic curves using biometric data and the user’s private key, which allows increasing cryptographic strength and reducing the duration of the authentication process. Methods. The process of implementing zero-knowledge proof protocols is as follows: one user (proofer) can convince another user (verifier) that he has some secret without disclosing the secret itself. Results. A cryptographic protocol for two-factor authentication with zero-knowledge over the extended field GF(2m) of elliptic curves using user biometric data is proposed, which significantly reduces the size of the protocol parameters and increases cryptographic strength (computational complexity of the breaking). There is no leakage of private key information and biometric data of the user during the execution of the zero-knowledge proof protocol. Conclusions. The implementation of a cryptographic protocol with zero-knowledge proof two-factor authentication based on elliptic curves allows significantly reducing the size of protocol parameters and increasing the cryptographic strength (computational complexity of the breaking).
With the proliferation of interconnected electrical systems and the rise of decentralized energy resources, the need for secure, transparent, and decentralized data exchange within smart grid systems has become imperative. This paper investigates the potential of integrating blockchain technology into smart grid systems to ensure secure data exchange while enhancing interoperability. The study establishes that blockchain's immutable ledger capabilities can be tailored to authenticate and validate the vast volume of transactions inherent in smart grid systems. Additionally, a prototype for blockchain-enhanced secure data exchange is presented, emphasizing consensus algorithms that are both energy-efficient and capable of real-time processing. The prototype demonstrates a substantial reduction in malicious data injections, unauthorized access, and other potential security breaches. Furthermore, the blockchain's decentralized nature promotes increased resilience against single-point failures, promoting reliability in smart grid data exchange. In essence, the synergy between blockchain technology and smart grid systems offers a promising avenue for creating a more secure, transparent, and interoperable energy network, pivotal for the future of distributed energy systems.
With the emergence of blockchain and smart contracts, traditional digital applications 1 such as identity management, supply chain management, banking and finance etc. are expected 2 to be transformed into Decentralized Applications (DApps). Blockchain interoperability is a new 3 and exciting aspect of blockchain technology that is quickly gaining popularity in many industries. 4 However, the widespread use of blockchains has not yet been achieved because DApps running on the 5 blockchain using smart contracts require access to authentic off-chain data. Users are more conscious 6 of their personal data privacy and consequently are more reluctant to share their data, posing a 7 challenge in the adoption of DApps. To solve this challenge, we present a novel quantum-resistant, 8 data authentication and zero-knowledge proof scheme named zk-DASTARK. Based on our proposed 9 scheme, we present a novel framework which can be used to feed authenticated off-chain data to 10 DApps without compromising user data privacy. Our proposed framework is quite efficient against 11 well-known off-chain data authentication frameworks. The proposed framework is implemented on 12 state-of-the-art quantum-resistant IOTA Blockchain and is highly efficient as it takes approximately 13 60 ms to generate a proof and approximately 10 ms to verify a proof.
Dec 17, 2023·2023 IEEE International Conference on High Performance Computing & Communications, Data Science & Systems, Smart City & Dependability in Sensor, Cloud & Big Data Systems & Application (HPCC/DSS/SmartCity/DependSys)
To alleviate the pressure on storage and execution on blockchain, existing platforms such as Ethereum have designed payment channels, attempting to transfer some of the pressure to off chain. Consistency protocols such as “lock-submit” based on asset are used to ensure consistency between on chain and off chain. However, the increasing number of multi-property-right and multi-attribute assets pose challenges to the parallel performance of existing payment channels. This paper proposes an on chain and off chain consistency protocol for multi-attribute digital assets based on data property rights. Firstly, we use a hypergraph to store asset contents off chain. Also, we use an index MMI (multi-property-right and multi-attribute index) on chain to store the relationship between accounts and assets, partial information of assets. Secondly, a multiparty payment channel is opened, verifiers verify the legitimacy of the transaction request based on the attribute state list in MMI and allow collaborative attribute modification on and off chain. Finally, nodes merge assets based on asset version numbers to ensure the consistency and security of asset content. After experiments, our consistency protocol has a success rate of 99.68% after asset merging, and the performance of execution can be improved by about 14%-29%, throughput can be improved by about 6%-14%, and the transaction size in the block is smaller.
Sundas Munir, Mirza Sanam Iqbal Baig, Mah Noor, Syeda Hina Murad
Smart contracts, running on blockchains, enable transparent interactions without intermediaries. However, program-related bugs and flaws in translating business logic into code can introduce vulnerabilities, making them attractive targets for malicious users. For instance, using input from untrusted users in critical operations without proper validation may lead to exploitable functionalities. We refer to this vulnerability as Missing Input Validation (MIV). This paper focuses on the issues caused by MIV (aka MIV-related issues) in Solidity smart contracts executing on the Ethereum blockchain. In particular, we conduct a case study emphasizing how MIV-related issues can lead to unexpected behavior in smart contracts, rendering them vulnerable to malicious manipulation. We also implement an information flow analysis-based analyzer, MIV-Checker, to statically detect instances of MIV in Solidity smart contracts. We evaluated MIV-Checker against a state-of-the-art smart contract analysis tool, Securify, using 3399 distinct contracts collected from the Ethereum blockchain. Securify identified only three contracts, whereas MIV-Checker detected 86 contracts as potentially susceptible to MIV. Our manual assessment confirms that MIV-Checker outperforms Securify by detecting more true MIV cases and reducing execution time. This case study helps determine that many recently used contracts on Ethereum may still be potentially vulnerable to MIV. Additionally, we position user-provided input as a non-deterministic factor in Ethereum contract execution and discuss future research avenues for mitigating issues arising from such factors.
The industrial internet of things (IIoT) necessitates robust cross-domain authentication to secure sensitive on-site equipment data. This paper presents a refined reputation-based lightweight consensus mechanism (LRBCM) tailored for IIoT's distributed network structures. Leveraging node reputation values, LRBCM streamlines ledger consensus, minimizing communication overhead and complexity. Comparative experiments show LRBCM outperforms competing mechanisms. It maintains higher throughput as the number of participating nodes increases and achieves a throughput approximately 10.78% higher than ReCon. Moreover, runtime analysis demonstrates LRBCM's scalability, surpassing ReCon by approximately 12.79% with equivalent nodes and transactions. In addition, as a combination of LRBCM, the proposed distributed lightweight authentication mechanism (ELAM) is rigorously evaluated against the security of various attacks, and its resilience is confirmed. Experiments show that ELAM has good efficiency while maintaining high security.
Managing and exchanging sensitive information securely is a paramount concern for different domains such as scientific, finance, cybersecurity, and healthcare. The increasing reliance on computing workflows and digital data transactions requires ensuring that sensitive information is protected from unauthorized access, tampering, or misuse and ensuring data integrity and transparency. To address this need, several approaches have been proposed such as JWT, SciTokens, Verifiable Credentials, and Smart Contracts which provide different methods for managing and exchanging information securely in centralized or decentralized and trustworthy environments. However, each technology offers unique advantages and limitations that require a comprehensive analysis to understand its potential and challenges. In our previous study, we conducted a comprehensive analysis of these approaches for authenticating and securing access to scientific data. This research further proposes a novel blockchain-based verifiable credentials that integrate the concept of Smart Contracts. The aim of this study is to introduce a decentralized and privacy-preserving authentication mechanism to enable stakeholders to share, verify, or revocation of their data with enhanced security, transparency, and trust. The proposed framework utilizes two different blockchain frameworks, Hyperledger Fabric and Ethereum to conduct comprehensive research to evaluate the effectiveness of both frameworks for the development of verifiable credentials. Our analysis indicates that Hyperledger Fabric offers enhanced security and ensures robust integrity through a private network and chaincode mechanism for authentication and access to data. As a result of our analysis, we adopt Hyperledger Fabric for the implementation and demonstration of the final version of our framework. We evaluate the proposed approach with a set of educational data to measure the effectiveness of the system. We find the proposed framework enables users to share data effectively within a secure network and only authorized stakeholders are allowed to access the shared data.
Joshua Priest, Cameron Cooper, S. Dan Lovell, Yong Shi · 5 authors
As technology continues to develop, there is a growing need to find sustainable solutions in all industries, including cryptocurrency. Due to the high energy consumption that cryptocurrencies are known for, there have been efforts to reduce waste consumption and in turn minimize the carbon footprint. We support the trends for creating an environment-friendly crypto token using the ERC-20 standard on the Ethereum blockchain. We outline the various aspects that make a token more sustainable and highlight the potential benefits of such tokens. Our proposal involves the design of a smart contract that incorporates eco-friendly features such as lower energy consumption, carbon offsetting, and more efficient methods or algorithms. We also discuss the importance of transparency and accountability in the design and implementation of such tokens. This paper discusses not only the practical tools and steps necessary in creating a crypto token but also highlights the challenges associated with creating a more sustainable token.
Anto Benedetti, Tiphaine Henry, Sara Tucci-Piergiovanni
Blockchain applications are witnessing rapid evolution, necessitating the integration of upgradeable smart contracts. Software patterns have been proposed to summarize upgradeable smart contract best practices. However, research is missing on the comparison of these upgradeable smart contract patterns, especially regarding gas costs related to deployment and execution. This study aims to provide an in-depth analysis of gas costs associated with two prevalent upgradeable smart contract patterns: the Proxy and diamond patterns. The Proxy pattern utilizes a Proxy pointing to a logic contract, while the diamond pattern enables a Proxy to point to multiple logic contracts. We conduct a comparative analysis of gas costs for both patterns in contrast to a traditional non-upgradeable smart contract. We derive from this analysis a theoretical contribution in the form of two consolidated blockchain patterns and a corresponding decision model. By so doing we hope to contribute to the broader understanding of upgradeable smart contract patterns.
The primary objective of this research is to investigate the seamless fusion of RDH-EI and blockchain, capitalizing on the inherent strengths of both paradigms. By integrating blockchain into the RDH-EI framework, a distributed ledger system is established, ensuring the confidentiality, integrity, and traceability of embedded data. The integration also introduces a decentralized governance structure through smart contracts, empowering fine-grained control over data access within the decentralized cloud storage environment. Innovatively, this research introduces dynamic parameter adaptation within the RDH-EI process, leveraging blockchain consensus mechanisms to optimize embedding parameters in real-time. This dynamic adjustment accommodates variations in network conditions and evolving security requirements, enhancing the adaptability of the embedding process. The envisioned contributions of this research include a fortified security posture for RDH-EI applications in decentralized cloud storage, dynamic adaptability of embedding parameters, a decentralized key management system, and cross-dataset generalization through extensive evaluations. As the research unfolds, it not only addresses the contemporary challenges of secure multimedia data embedding but also provides a forward-looking perspective, offering a robust and adaptable solution for the evolving landscape of decentralized cloud storage ecosystems. The outcome of this research is anticipated to shape the future of secure and efficient data embedding in the rapidly advancing domain of decentralized cloud storage.
Abu Taher Md Shifat, Md. Ahsan Habib, Shahid Hasan, Avishek Roy
Distributed Ledger Technologies (DLT), notably blockchain, have advanced significantly, finding applications in various domains, including education, for enhanced transparency and accountability. The utilization of hash functions and public-key cryptography (e.g., ECDSA and RSA) in blockchain ensures these attributes. However, the rapid progress in quantum computing has unveiled vulnerabilities in classical public-key cryptography, necessitating a reassessment of blockchain architecture for quantum resistance. This article explores diverse blockchain architectures in education, evaluating their susceptibility to quantum attacks. It introduces QEdu, a consortium blockchain framework securing educational credentials using quantum-safe Elgamal-Like public-key cryptography based on matrices over grouping. Comparative analysis with existing works underscores the efficacy of the proposed framework.
Rakibul Hasan, Md Al Amin, Sheikh Dobir Hossain, Md. Ibrahim Abdullah
Controlling users’ access to protected resources is essential for providing timely and accurate access to authorized users for performing businesses and services. It is equally necessary to prevent unauthorized or malicious users from accessing resources to avoid unwanted security incidents. Different access control models provide this using well-defined, reviewed, developed, and verified policy sets, attributes, contextual information, and others. It is crucial to maintain the security of these components to protect resources. Considering the improper policy modifications, they could lead to unauthorized access to objects. Detecting and preventing improper policy modifications is important to providing security for protected resources. Towards this direction and considering other secured components, this paper proposes a blockchain smart contract-based Zero-Trust authorization policy integrity assurance mechanism. Policy class integrity is stored on the blockchain. The authorization module calculates policy class integrity from the local policy repository for every access request and checks it against the blockchain. If policy integrity is not matched, it indicates policy tampering. The authorization module rejects the access request and processes it further to make decisions. Otherwise, it considers other components to make decisions. Blockchain provides decentralized and immutable properties, and smart contracts have auto-triggering and unalterable functionalities. All these properties ensure that stored policy integrity is not tampered with and checking is done without compromise. Experimental evaluations show that the proposed approach is feasible and applicable for real-world applications to protect valuable resources and provide emerging services without compromising security properties. The average policy class integrity writing cost for the deployed smart contract is 0.00025 ETH. The average reading time is 0.15845 seconds to verify the integrity on the blockchain network.
Abhijeet R. Raipurkar, Shreyas Bobde, Anurag Tripahi, Mohit Sahu
A digital identity represents an external entity, be it a person, business, program, or object, and serves as the foundation for automatic access to computer-based services and interpersonal interactions. Despite years of research, the challenge of reliable internet connectivity for digital identification remains unresolved. In this paper, we propose a blockchain-based solution for digital identification in situations of mutual mistrust. Unlike current identity management systems that rely on centralized storage, our recommendation is a blockchain-based, self-sovereign identity (SSI) platform where true identities of customers/users are held in their respective web applications, utilizing decentralized storage. The identification information is validated using the Zero Knowledge Proof (ZKP) technique offered by SSI-based platforms, ensuring privacy and security. The proposed approach in this paper serves as a digital identity wallet, empowering users to verify their identities using blockchain technology and an SSI-based approach, resulting in a decentralized, ZKP-verified, and immutable identity. By addressing the issues of data immutability, traceability, and centralized control often associated with traditional identification systems, the proposed approach offers a robust and versatile model of proven claims that can be verified by external sources. Different implementations of claim formation and verification, showcasing sub-second performance is presented in the paper.
Blockchain Technology Applications and Security
Cloud Data Security Solutions
Advanced Steganography and Watermarking Techniques
Blockchains and distributed ledger technology offer promising capabilities for supporting collaborative business processes across organizations. Typically, approaches in this field fall into two categories: either executing the entire process model on the blockchain or using the blockchain primarily to enforce or monitor the exchange of messages between participants. Our work proposes a novel approach that sits between these two methods. We introduce a centralized process model extended with blockchain annotations, detailing the tasks of each participating organization and the extent to which blockchain technology is needed to secure task execution. This model also includes all critical data objects and specifies how their handling should be protected by the blockchain. This technical report outlines a systematic three-step method for automatically decentralizing this comprehensive model into individual local process models for each organization, coupled with a separate process model for the blockchain. This decentralized structure effectively replicates the original global process model. Our transformation approach is rule-based, focusing on creating a platform-inde-pendent model first, then a platform-specific model. Subsequently, we project the platform-specific model to obtain one model for the blockchain and one model for each participating organization.
The implementation of blockchain technology alongside Artificial Intelligence features that strengthen Internet of Things cloud-based systems through extended data protection, enhanced robotic trust, and decentralized intelligence capabilities.Both potential benefits and obstacles of building blockchain-empowered collaborative AI systems that perform secure computations across multiple parties and present architectural guidelines for privacy protection.Digital transformation now drives various industries forward because of the power combination between IoT and distributed ledger technology and their alignment with AI and edge-fog-cloud computing environments.Blockchain integration with IoT networks protects data integrity by remedying vital privacy and security problems, which creates a robust system that handles decentralized, secure data management.Blockchain technology makes financial operations secure and faster across all payment transactions, trade finance, and asset management operations to build complete trust with banking institutions.Through their mutual partnership, blockchain and robotic technologies develop advanced robotic systems that exhibit better operational performance and use strengthened security systems to address blockchain weaknesses.This leads to better dependability of AIdriven service operations.Multiple forces drive blockchain integration with AI applications because users need stronger data security basics to protect confidential data from unauthorized use or tampering, and they want more reliable robot decision authentication.
This paper aims to explore methods and techniques for achieving verifiability in cloud computing environments. Methodologically, by utilizing game theory as the theoretical foundation and employing blockchain and smart contracts as core technologies, we introduce various cooperative mechanisms, including prisoner's contracts, collusion contracts, and traitor contracts, to construct a trustworthy computational framework. In terms of improvements, we innovatively incorporate local blockchains, state channel technology, zero-knowledge proof technology, multi-signature technology, and dynamic reward and punishment mechanisms to additional optimize existing methods. However, the proposed technologies in this paper still require further research and practical validation to assess their actual applicability. Going forward, it is important to enhance blockchain storage and synchronization mechanisms, as well as promote their implementation in broader domains.
As digital interaction intensifies with the proliferation of internet usage, there is a consequent surge in digital data storage needs. Recognizing this trend, numerous enterprises have extended file storage solutions for consumers to securely archive their data. Traditionally, this data resides on centralized servers and employs location-based addressing, optimizing distribution, management, security, and the scaling capacities of both servers and clients. Nonetheless, this centralized paradigm presents challenges, notably concerning security, privacy, and operational efficiency. Under this framework, there exists the potential for users’ data to be accessed, altered, or deleted by those administering the server. A promising avenue to address these challenges is the inception of a web-based decentralized file storage application characterized by precision and robust security. This innovative application leverages the InterPlanetary File System (IPFS) for its data storage layer, capitalizing on IPFS’s Peer-to-Peer (P2P) network architecture which fosters decentralized and distributed file sharing across a plethora of computers or nodes. To maintain a comprehensive record of all distributed files, the system incorporates a smart contract, enabling the execution of business logic on the blockchain. In this study, we undertake a systematic examination of deployment costs at the laboratory scale, focusing on platforms such as Ganache and the Ropsten network. We then juxtapose these findings within the context of the Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM), analyzing comparative metrics across networks including Polygon, Binance Smart Chain, and Ethereum.
This paper proposes a novel approach to securing electronic health records(EHRs) using non-fungible tokens (NFTs). NFTs are unique digital tokens that can be used to represent ownership or proof of authenticity of digital assets. The proposed framework explores the use of NFTs for secure patient data storage, secure data transfer, data provenance, and patient ownership of data. By using NFTs to establish secure and auditable records of patient data, electronic health records management systems can better protect patient privacy and security. The paper also discusses the challenges and opportunities of using NFTs in EHRs, as well as the legal and ethical implications of giving patients ownership and control over their medical data. This paper presents a new avenue for research into securing EHRs using NFTs, which has the potential to improve patient outcomes and advance the field of health informatics.
The Log-Structure Merged tree (LSM-tree) based key-value (KV) store has been widely adopted as the storage engine for blockchain systems, such as Ethereum, in which blockchain data are uniformly transformed into randomly distributed KV items for persistence. However, blockchain semantics are ignored during this process, making the blockchain storage suffer from heavy read/write amplification problems. Moreover, as the Ethereum network scales up, tremendous data further exacerbates its storage burden. Until now, most studies have focused on sharding, data archiving, decentralized distributed storage, etc., to mitigate the burden of the storage layer. However, the incompatibility between Ethereum semantics and the characteristics of the storage engine is ignored. In this paper, we present ChainKV, a new semantics-aware storage paradigm to improve the storage management performance for the Ethereum system. Firstly, based on Ethereum blockchain semantics, ChainKV separately stores different types of data in multiple storage zones in the KV store to mitigate the read/write amplification problem. Secondly, following the mechanism of the verification process in the authenticated data structure (ADS), a new ADS data transformer is proposed to exploit the data locality when persisting ADS. Moreover, a new space gaming caching policy is adopted to coordinate the cache space management for two independent storage zones. Finally, we propose an optional lightweight node crash recovery mechanism to eliminate functional redundancy between the Ethereum protocol and the storage engine. The experimental results indicate that ChainKV outperforms the prior Ethereum systems by up to 1.99× and 4.20× for synchronization and query operations, respectively
The primitive of verifiable data streaming (VDS) provides a secure data outsourcing solution for resource-constrained users, that is, they can stream their continuously-generated data items to untrusted servers while enabling publicly verifiable query and update. However, existing VDS schemes either require the server to store the authentication tags of all data items to support data query and auditing, or bind all data items into a constant-size tag to achieve optimal storage on the server side, but cannot achieve public auditing. To close this gap, in this paper, we first design a novel authentication data structure, dubbed retrievable homomorphic verifiable tags (RHVTs), which allows users to aggregate the authentication tags of all data items into a constant-size tag, and enables them to retrieve the original tags from the aggregated tag when necessary. Based on this, we propose a compact verifiable and auditable data streaming (CVADS) scheme, which adopts a single-level authentication mechanism to achieve more efficient data append and update, as well as optimal storage and public auditing. For better robustness and performance, we introduce a nested dual-level authentication mechanism and propose a blockchain-based CVADS (BCVADS) scheme to achieve a distributed CVADS with self-auditing. Finally, we prove the security of our schemes in the random oracle model and demonstrate their practicality through a visual performance evaluation.