I discussed on zero trust and hybrid cloud with John Kindervag when he worked at Forrester Research around 2010. He asked why traditional security controls are not effective. He said that network segmentation I to static, and when the attacker is let inside the network segment, we are no longer tracking what resources the attacker is accessing. We need to change from “trust and verify” to “verify and then trust”. In this chapter, we will discuss that another security aspect is zero-knowledge proof, which means you actually are in possession of knowledge without sharing the secret. Zero trust and zero knowledge and how they are different. So, you can convince someone that you have a secret without disclosing the secret.
ABSTRACT Blockchain consortia offer firms several advantages, including the ability to maintain a shared transaction ledger that is secure, verified, and agreed-upon by key business partners. While these benefits are largely derived from blockchain’s distributed architecture, this same architecture poses challenges to auditors working to provide assurance on a technology owned, operated, and maintained across several firms’ borders. Indeed, participating in a blockchain consortium transitions a firm from relying solely on its own IT infrastructure and processes, to being vulnerable to how other firms collectively maintain the shared ledger. As blockchain consortia grow and are used to process and record material transactions, members will require assurance that other members maintain the blockchain in a well-controlled manner. Given the complexities of auditing a distributed environment, this study proposes three design choices intended to improve the auditability of consortium blockchains. Practitioners then evaluate these designs and offer additional considerations/alternative paths forward.
The maturation of wireless connectivity, blockchain (distributed ledger technologies), and intelligent systems has fostered a comprehensive ecosystem for the Internet of Things (IoT). However, the growing volume of data generated by IoT devices creates substantial pressure on blockchain storage and computation capabilities, impeding the further development of the IoT ecosystem. Decentralizing data storage across multiple chains and utilizing cross-chain technology for data exchange eliminates the need for expensive centralized infrastructure, lowers data transfer costs, and improves accessibility. Hence, the issue of computational and storage pressure in blockchain can be improved. Nonetheless, the data of IoT devices are constantly updating, and ensuring consistency for dynamic data across heterogeneous chains remains a significant challenge. To address the aforementioned challenge, we propose a blockchain-based distributed and lightweight data consistency verification model (BDCA), which leverages a batch verification dynamic Merkle hash tree (BV-MHT) and an advanced gamma multi-signature scheme (AGMS) to enable consistent verification of dynamic data while ensuring secure and private data transmission. The AGMS scheme is reliable and robust based on security analysis while the dependability and consistency of BDCA are verified through inductive reasoning. Experimental results indicate that BDCA outperforms CPVPA and Fortress in communication and computation overhead for data preprocessing and auditing in a similar condition, and the AGMS scheme exhibits superior performance when compared to other widely adopted multi-signature schemes such as Cosi, BLS, and RSA. Furthermore, BDCA provides up to 99% data consistency guarantees, demonstrating its practicality.
Electronic Medical Records (EMRs) sharing enhances healthcare and biomedical discoveries but faces challenges: data provider centralization and limited interoperability. Blockchain can address these issues, but existing systems struggle with malicious EMR propagation due to challenges concerning the authenticity, non-repudiation, and integrity of the digital signatures they employ. Universal Designated Verifier Signature Proof (UDVSP) may be an intuitive solution, but existing UDVSP schemes are inefficient due to time-consuming bilinear pairing operations. In this article, we first adopt the Elliptic Curve Digital Signature Algorithm (ECDSA) to propose a more efficient and blockchain-friendly UDVSP scheme, following by a blockchain-based EMR sharing system (EMRChain). To our best knowledge, our proposed UDVSP scheme is the first bilinear pairing-free solution, and EMRChain is the first blockchain-based EMR sharing system to possess the anti-malicious propagation. Furthermore, we proceed to provide a thorough security analysis and performance evaluation of both our UDVSP scheme and EMRChain. Our UDVSP scheme is provably secure within the security model and offers significant computational cost savings (at least 86.76%) and reduced communication overhead (at least 59.37%) compared to existing UDVSP schemes. These results, along with the EMRChain prototype, effectively showcase the utility and effectiveness of EMRChain, which is built upon our UDVSP scheme.
Robust subgroup multisignature allows any subgroup of signers from a global set to sign a given message on behalf of the whole group, and the individual signatures should be verified before the combination process, which resists poison signature attacks. An emerging application of robust subgroup multisignatures in blockchain is that a qualified subgroup of a global set of users has reached agreement. In the integrated blockchain and edge computing system, the edge server can naturally act as a combiner in multisignatures and help other end devices produce the final aggregate signature. In this paper, we propose a robust subgroup multisignature with one-time public keys in order that has two advantages for solving the signers ordering problem and one-time public key problem simultaneously. Our scheme is a nontrivial extension of Galindo et al.’s robust subgroup multisignature scheme and can be proven unforgeable, robust and chronological in random oracles. Our scheme can also be suitable for the consortium blockchain by adding a noninteractive zero-knowledge (NIZK) proof system for certifying the one-time public keys.
The benefit of using blockchain technology for information system security in the field of education is that all entered data cannot be easily faked, lost, or damaged. With blockchain, one can also communicate data and information instantly and be decentralized without depending on third parties. Blockchain is a distributed ledger that effectively and efficiently records transactions between two parties in a verifiable and everlasting way. Yet, even though blockchain technology has not yet been applied extensively in the field of education Yet, to meet the goals of this study and produce results that apply to the field of education, researchers attempt to assess the security of information systems in education using fingerprints by integrating cryptographic hash security sensors. These topics and the SWOT analysis used in this research approach will be explored.
Bitcoin is an electronic cryptocurrency developed based on Blockchain technology. With its decentralized feature, it has become incredibly popular since its invention. However, the Bitcoin network suffers from 51% attacks, where if malicious attackers’ control over half of the computing power, they are able to rewrite the network. The attackers are capable of doing so by initiating the Eclipse attack first, which aims to monopolize all communications from and to a controlled Bitcoin node. In this paper, we model and analyze the dependability of the Bitcoin network subject to the Eclipse and 51% attacks. We propose a hierarchical model that encompasses a continuous-time Markov chain method for the node-level dependability analysis and a multi-valued decision diagram method for the system-level dependability analysis. Detailed case studies on Bitcoin systems with homogeneous and heterogeneous nodes are conducted to demonstrate the proposed model and investigate the impacts of several critical parameters on Bitcoin network dependability.
Distributed Ledger Technologies (DLTs) and blockchain systems are used in various higher-level departments, government sectors and commercial industries. This article reviews how DLTs and blockchain systems work with IOT devices and how it provides security and scalability. The metaverse sets a new standard for social media sites and 3D virtual spaces. Moreover, the key aim of the virtual world is to safeguard the metadata of IOT customers. Additionally, crypto is an effective solution due to its openness, data integrity, and accountability characteristics. So, we review the two new burning technologies of crypto and the virtual world from a methodological perspective, i.e. data collection, saving data, allocation, integration, and data confidentiality are all aspects of data management. By each strategy, in this article, we discuss the methodological techniques of the meta chain and then investigate the potential benefits of blockchain technology. Further, we analyze how blockchain will influence other critical enabling technologies in the metaverse's service world, such as the IOT.
Electronic health records (EHR) form a digitalized medical history of a person. In the era of Healthcare 4.0, such records can play a crucial role. However, these records require high security and confidentiality, to ensure patient privacy is maintained. A system that provides data security, confidentiality, integrity and access control is needed to maintain such records. The system must also be fast and scalable, as health records are present in enormous numbers. Blockchain based EHR systems have been researched for quite some time. These systems work well, but have some limitations, such as low scalability. Advent of quantum computers threatens their ability to provide security and confidentiality. In this paper, we present a post-quantum, consortium blockchain framework which is used to store and access EHRs. The design uses CRYSTALS Kyber-768 public key cryptosystem to provide security against quantum attacks. The system is designed to give persons absolute authority on their personal health data.
Blockchain (BC) is a cryptographic technology that enables the decentralized storage of an immutable record of transactions. As a result, many industries are interested in integrating BC into their IT systems. Although BC-based platforms are used in enterprise solutions, concerns regarding accessibility, privacy, performance, and scalability are still legitimate. Permissioned Blockchain (PBC) frameworks provide a solution to securely store private records. The main objective of this paper is to focuses on the performance and scalability of popular private BC platforms. To evaluate each platform, we varied the workloads and assessed performance metrics. Our comparative analysis provides valuable insights into the strengths and weaknesses of each platform, enabling enterprises to make informed decisions when choosing a private BC solution.
Tao Huang, Renchao Xie, Yuzheng Ren, F. Richard Yu · 10 authors
In recent years, the Industrial Internet and Industry 4.0 came into being. With the development of modern industrial intelligent manufacturing technology, digital twins, Web3 and many other digital entity applications are also proposed. These applications apply architectures such as distributed learning, resource sharing, and arithmetic trading, which make high demands on identity authentication, asset authentication, resource addressing, and service location. Therefore, an efficient, secure, and trustworthy Industrial Internet identity resolution system is needed. However, most of the traditional identity resolution systems follow DNS architecture or tree structure, which has the risk of a single point of failure and DDoS attack. And they cannot guarantee the security and privacy of digital identity, personal assets, and device information. So we consider a decentralized approach for identity management, identity authentication, and asset verification. In this paper, we propose a distributed trusted active identity resolution system based on the inter-planetary file system (IPFS) and non-fungible token (NFT), which can provide distributed identity resolution services. And we have designed the system architecture, identity service process, load balancing strategy and smart contract service. In addition, we use Jmeter to verify the performance of the system, and the results show that the system has good high concurrent performance and robustness.
Lattice-based cryptography is one of the most promising candidates for designing post-quantum cryptographic algorithms that resist emerging quantum computing attacks. The recent NIST PQC standardization process is nearing its completion, with practical lattice-based algorithms for basic cryptographic functionalities (namely digital signature and public-key encryption) selected for standardization in the near future. However, practical lattice-based solutions for more advanced privacy-preserving protocols, in particular, Zero-Knowledge Proofs (ZKPs), have only emerged recently and are an active area of research. We discuss some recent developments in design and analysis of practical lattice-based post-quantum ZKPs and their applications. In particular, we review some challenges that arise in designing ZKPs in the lattice setting and some recent progress on efficient lattice-based Schnorr-like proofs for important relations, such as binary/range proofs, one-out-of-many proofs and rounding proofs [1, 2, 4]. We discuss applications and optimization of such proof systems as building blocks for practical advanced cryptographic protocols such as ring signatures and balance proofs for privacy-preserving cryptocurrency payment protocols [2, 3]. We also discuss our recent work on succinct designated-verifier ZKPs (DV-ZKSNARKS) for verifying correctness of general delegated computations [5].
Blockchain technology promises a disruptive enhancement in trust establishment among supply chain actors. In particular, transparency and traceability can significantly get improved by a blockchain based data exchange platform which provides an immutable source of truth driven by a multi-stakeholder consensus. This also helps authenticate the provenance of products which is an added value that can be monetized by the supply chain participants. Nonetheless, due to the transparent nature of the blockchain, privacy and confidentiality are still a major concern for industries. In this paper, we present zk-BeSC, a blockchain enabled supply chain scheme based on zero-knowledge proofs of polynomials. The scheme allows transactions between supply chain participants in a privacy preserving fashion. It also offers tamper-resistance and replication due to the intrinsic nature of the blockchain. ZK-BeSC is fully implemented using an ethereum testnet and a web3 application. The scheme performs efficient proofs and has reduced gas consumption during verification.
Decentralized distributed systems can provide certain advantages over their centralized counterparts. These include improved fault tolerance and attack resistance due to the elimination of a single point of failure, better censorship resistance and openness because of the absence of a central authority, as well as higher autonomy of the nodes due to self-governance of resources. Distributed ledger and blockchain technologies have played a key role in the increasing adoption of decentralized systems. One of the notable contributions of blockchains to decentralized systems is that they are able to ensure properties such as integrity, immutability, and verifiability even in trust-deficient environments where nodes lack trust in each other. However, ensuring the privacy of users still remains a challenge in decentralized systems where the application requires users to contribute confidential or identifiable information. Privacy is particularly challenging to achieve in trust-deficient environments due to the nodes not being able to rely on fellow nodes for privacy guarantees. My work addresses privacy preservation in trust-deficient decentralized systems. In this habilitation thesis, we include some selected contributions from our work in three broad areas: privacy-preserving decentralized reputation systems, privacy-preserving message routing in decentralized networks, and privacy preservation in decentralized financial networks.The reputation of a user in a distributed system may be computed as an aggregate of the feedback provided by fellow users. Privacy-preserving reputation systems enable users to provide feedback in a private and thus uninhibited manner. We present several contributions in this area, which include a decentralized privacy-preserving reputation protocol based on the computation of mean that is secure under the malicious adversarial model. The protocol offers significant improvement in performance as compared to earlier protocols in the literature. Additionally, we define an attack called Reputation-based Re-identification (RR attack), which can link successive contributions provided by a participant in participatory sensing applications and subsequently re-identify them. We then propose PrivaSense, a privacy-preserving reputation system that defends against this attack. Experiments on a real dataset demonstrate that PrivaSense is successful in decreasing the number of contributions linked to their providers. Furthermore, we propose a voting protocol (as a generalized instance of a privacy-preserving reputation protocol) that ensures transparency, confidentiality, and integrity in a decentralized trust-deficient setup. The persistence and immutability of the protocol's communication allow verifiability of the outcome by the voters themselves. Our contribution on secure voting is further extended by our work on collusion-resistant worker set selection. We propose protocols that select a subset of workers (who process data during the protocol execution) from the set of participants such that the risk of collusion between workers is minimized.Mobile Delay Tolerant Networks (MDTNs) are composed of mobile devices that communicate in a decentralized manner without the help of fixed infrastructure. A prediction-based routing protocol for MDTNs functions by forwarding a message from one intermediate node to another if the latter has higher probability of encountering the destination node. However, this process compromises the privacy of the nodes by revealing their mobility patterns. We propose the Privacy-Preserving Probabilistic Prediction-based Routing (4PR) protocol that forwards messages by comparing information about communities of nodes instead of individual nodes in order to protect their privacy. The protocol computes a probability function in a decentralized privacy-preserving manner. Simulations on a community-based mobility model demonstrate that our protocol is able to preserve privacy while offering performance comparable to protocols that do not protect privacy.Many Decentralized Finance (DeFi) Peer-to-Peer (P2P) lending platforms offer users to obtain a loan by committing a collateral or by calculating a credit score. However, the requirements of collateral and credit history are quite burdensome for certain groups of users. We propose to use a social trustworthiness score drawn from users' social interactions as an alternative risk mitigator for lending instead of collateral. Privacy considerations are taken into account in order to protect the borrower's privacy despite the use of social interaction data. Another application that we address is Supplier Impersonation Fraud (SIF) detection in the Business-to-Business (B2B) context. This type of fraud occurs when a company supplying goods and services to another company is impersonated by a fraudster in order to trigger a payment to an illegitimate bank account. We introduce GraphSIF, a SIF detection system that aims to infer knowledge from the relational properties created by the transactions of a company. GraphSIF analyzes data that has been heavily anonymized in order to preserve the privacy of the participating companies. The classification of a targeted transaction is performed by first clustering the graphs, and then comparing the similarity between the targeted transaction's graph with the other graphs of its cluster. The model shows good efficiency in terms of computational time needed to create the behavior sequence and to classify the transactions.
Arul Murugavel B, B Kamaleshwaran, M Sneha, S. Kavitha
Certificates are generally used all around the world. The certificates are given to those who successfully finish any specific courses. Certificate is used to validate the user has successfully completed particular course or competition that is been conducted by the respective organization. Nowadays Fake certificates can be made and used which is hard to find with the naked eye. This paper focuses on avoiding such practices, where the certificate is minted as NFT and it’s data cannot be tampered and the certificate cannot be added without the respective admins minting certificate. The certificate is then issued as a blockchain-stored NFT. Data that has been stored on a blockchain cannot be modified. As a result of this creating a forged certificate will become difficult. Crypto currency is used in the minting and transferring procedures. The industry that will provide the certificate must be confirmed before it is created and transferred. And these processes are smartly crafted contracts.
Saeed Banaeian Far, Azadeh Imani Rad, Maryam Rajabzadeh Asaar
Without a doubt, the blockchain is one of the most valuable technological advancements to have been introduced over the past decade and has played a significant role in the industrial revolution. The emergence of technologies derived from blockchain, such as decentralized finance (DeFi) and the Metaverse, has fundamentally transformed people's daily lives and profoundly impacted future versions of digital businesses. This study explored the evolution of digital businesses in the near future, with a specific focus on the two primary technologies mentioned above. First, we reviewed DeFi-based technologies, including GameFi, SciFi, SocialFi, and others, which serve as foundational building blocks for future jobs and businesses. Second, we examined Metaverse-based jobs, such as Metaverse-based academies and markets, which are expected to be launched as commonly used businesses. Ultimately, this study provides several guidelines, such as how to use DeFi 2.0 and apply centralized decentralized finance (CeDeFi)-based platforms. Additionally, it offers future directions for launching these businesses, including controlling the progress of artificial intelligence (AI) in practical applications, utilizing cloud-assisted models for the Metaverse, and providing conditional privacy for future Metaverse-based businesses.
Xiaowan Wang, Huiyin Xie, Shan Ji, Liang Liu · 5 authors
The rapid development of the Internet and Internet of Things has rapidly introduced human society into the information age, and the way of fake news production has been updated, which has greatly affected the normal life of human beings. In order to identify worthless fake news and trace massive fake news data from unknown sources, and share valuable news data to fully disseminate effective real news, news owners usually store news data in cloud. Users of IoT terminals can access news data on demand without storing it locally. However, the authenticity of the fictive newspaper numbers source, which is easy to destroy, and the social media platform. Besides, when massive news data is saved on cloud server, the news owners have to at the risk of lose physical control over news data and it will face the risk of fake news being disseminated and real news being falsified. Thus, this paper proposes a novel mechanism for secure storage of news data using blockchain technology. Firstly, traceability and verification of fake news data is improved by the cooperative storage model on and off the chain. Secondly due to the inability of past polynomial commitment to update the commitment, we will be a hindrance to use polynomial commitment to build a secure authentication protocol. Therefore, in this paper, we design the update algorithm for polynomial commitment in order to be able to guarantee the consistency of on-chain and blockchain database news data.
Decentralized approaches play an increasingly critical role in multi-stakeholder activities which require (a) shared situational awareness, (b) shared coordination points, and (c) historical record of activities, in disperse and distributed activities, such as manufacturing supply chains, space, and national security. These activities require stakeholders to mutually coordinate and cooperate by sharing information with each other. The common modes of information sharing are bi-lateral exchanges, and ‘walled garden’ sharing among a subset of stakeholders. Problems arise due to incomplete information sharing and lack of trust among stakeholders. The origins of mistrust are: (a) stakeholders may not trust (political, technical, risk) a single stakeholder to be fully in control of information flow and storage; (b) risk of central-point-of-failure is too high; (c) uncertain data integrity between stakeholders where all stakeholders do not trust each other. Multi-stakeholder data sharing challenges can be addressed with decentralized approaches and associated decentralized data technology such as ledgers and blockchain. Decentralized data technology includes decentralized identity (e.g., W3C DID), decentralized file storage, and blockchain/ledgers to provide cryptographically provable data integrity properties (e.g., tamper evident), as well as increased resilience to accident and attack. Fortunately, the decentralized data technology sector is maturing, and entering a phase of wider adoption in industry, pursuing decentralized data technologies at an increasing rate. This paper starts with a brief review of decentralized data technology, then describes multi-stakeholder examples in space sensor tasking and manufacturing supply chain where decentralized approaches and data technologies can improve coordination and cooperation.
Tal Derei, Benjamin Aulenbach, Victor Carolino, Caleb Geren · 8 authors
Zero-Knowledge proofs are a cryptographic technique to reveal knowledge of information without revealing the information itself, thus enabling systems optimally to mix privacy and transparency, and, where needed, regulatability. Application domains include health and other enterprise data, financial systems such as central-bank digital currencies, and performance enhancement in blockchain systems. The challenge of zero-knowledge proofs is that, although they are computationally easy to verify, they are computationally hard to produce. This paper examines the scalability limits of leading zero-knowledge algorithms and addresses the use of parallel architectures to meet performance demands of applications.
Blockchain is also known as Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT) and real transparencies of the history of digital assets by decentralization and encryption. It guarantees that the user's data never be erased, making it impossible to alter or falsify. Some people know that the "Blockchain revolution" can be compared with the internet and the web in their early days. As a result, all software development around blockchain is growing incredibly. Most software engineers are interested in blockchain technologies as they rush to develop unregulated software. Although some research has been performed on blockchain security and privacy concerns, a thorough analysis state of blockchain security is lacking. This article explores current problems and new principles for blockchain-oriented software engineering (BOSE) and discusses the need for new software engineering practices in the blockchain industry. Also, examine the solutions to improve blockchain protection, which might have been used to develop different blockchain applications, and suggest a few potential directions for moving research into this area.
This article analyzes existing smart contract-based public data integrity verification schemes and identifies certain weaknesses. First, the fair arbitration mechanism deployed in these schemes fails to meet the users’ requirements as it may not promptly notify users of data corruption or loss. Second, to ensure outsourced data confidentiality, existing data integrity schemes use a conventional encrypted method, where each user randomly selects a key to encrypt the outsourced data. Such a method results in varying ciphertexts for the same data by different users, leading to additional storage costs for the cloud server. Third, users’ devices, if poorly designed or even intentionally backdoored, can potentially exfiltrate secrets and compromise the security of schemes. To address these issues, we propose the first backdoor-resistant public data integrity verification scheme based on smart contracts (ASSIST). The key idea is to introduce a new entity (a whistleblower) to periodically monitor the state of verification results recorded in the blockchain. This allows for timely notification of data corruption to users. ASSIST requires users to encrypt their data with a cryptographic primitive called message-locked encryption (MLE), which motivates different users to produce the same ciphertext for the same data and reduces storage costs for cloud servers. We also deploy a cryptographic reverse firewall between users’ devices and the external to rerandomize interactive messages, making the exfiltration impossible. We provide rigorous security proofs to demonstrate the security of ASSIST. The performance evaluation shows that ASSIST is efficient regarding computation and communication costs.