Cloud storage is an essential method for data storage. Verifying the integrity of data in the cloud is critical for the client. Traditional cloud storage approaches rely on third-party auditors (TPAs) to accomplish auditing tasks. However, third-party auditors are often not trusted. To eliminate over-reliance on third-party auditors, this paper designs a blockchain-based auditing scheme that uses blockchain instead of third-party auditors to ensure the reliability of data auditing. Meanwhile, our scheme is based on the audit method of the quad Merkle hash tree, using the root of the quad Merkle hash tree to verify the integrity of data, which significantly improves computing and storage efficiency. Automated verification of auditing activities by deploying smart contracts on the blockchain allows us to have a more up-to-date picture of data integrity. The performance of the scheme is evaluated through security analysis and experiments, which prove that the proposed scheme is secure and effective.INDEX TERMS Integrity auditing, Blockchain, Merkle tree, Smart contract.
Increasing numbers of users are outsourcing data to the cloud, but data integrity is an important issue. Due to the decentralization and immutability of blockchain, more and more researchers tend to use blockchain to replace third-party auditors. This paper proposes a data integrity system based on blockchain expansion technology that aims to solve the problem of high cost for blockchain network maintenance and for user creation of new blocks caused by the rapid growth of blocks in the data integrity audit scheme of existing blockchain technology. Users and cloud service providers (CSP) deploy smart contracts on the main chain and sub-chains. Intensive and frequent computing work is transferred to the sub-chain for completion, and the computation results of the sub-chain are submitted to the main chain periodically or when needed to ensure its finality. The concept of non-interactive audit is introduced to avoid affecting user experience due to the communication with the CSP during the audit process. In order to ensure data security, a reward pool mechanism is introduced. Comprehensive analysis from aspects such as storage, batch auditing and data consistency proves the correctness of the scheme. Experiments on the Ethereum blockchain platform demonstrate that this scheme can effectively reduce storage and computational overhead.INDEX TERMS Blockchain, cloud storage, data auditing, blockchain expansion.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.
hi@scite.ai
10624 S. Eastern Ave., Ste. A-614
Henderson, NV 89052, USA
Copyright © 2024 scite LLC. All rights reserved.
Made with 💙 for researchers
Part of the Research Solutions Family.