Blockchain Framework Research Articles

Modeling of blockchain with encryption based secure education record management system

Blockchain technology can be employed in the education sector by building a decentralized system to store and share student records. The records can be encrypted to guarantee their confidentiality and security. With a blockchain-based system, student records can be saved in blocks that are linked and secured via cryptography. The records are decentralized and not controlled by any single entity, making them less susceptible to hacking or tampering. By using blockchain technology, educational institutions can create a more secure and efficient system for storing and sharing student records. This can streamline the process of transferring records between schools, and provide a secure and transparent way for students to access their own records. In this study, we provide a novel Merkle tree-based strategy for preserving the accuracy of student records and outline how to put it into practice. The software architecture resembled blockchain technology and was developed for private network deployment. The key components of our strategy are replacing conventional audit trails with their cryptographically secure equivalent and simplifying the Blockchain framework by avoiding mining. The cryptography system's framework is presented, and the new five dimensions of chaotic map academic records are proposed. Our study utilizes deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) sequences and operations and the chaotic system to strengthen the cryptosystem in the blockchain authentication and authorization process. The significant advantage of this method is enhancing the generation of the hash function, which is the most critical challenge in the blockchain concept. The experimental outcomes and security analysis demonstrated that the proposed method works well in terms of different aspects. The suggested hash function's hash value distribution, sensitivity to tiny message modifications, confusion and diffusion qualities, resilience against birthday attacks, keyspace analysis, collision resistance, efficiency, and flexibility were all considered throughout the study.

Retracted: Secure Model for IoT Healthcare System under Encrypted Blockchain Framework

Retracted: Secure Model for IoT Healthcare System under Encrypted Blockchain Framework

BioChainReward: A Secure and Incentivised Blockchain Framework for Biomedical Data Sharing.

In the era of digital healthcare, biomedical data sharing is of paramount importance for the advancement of research and personalised healthcare. However, sharing such data while preserving user privacy and ensuring data security poses significant challenges. This paper introduces BioChainReward (BCR), a blockchain-based framework designed to address these concerns. BCR offers enhanced security, privacy, and incentivisation for data sharing in biomedical applications. Its architecture consists of four distinct layers: data, blockchain, smart contract, and application. The data layer handles the encryption and decryption of data, while the blockchain layer manages data hashing and retrieval. The smart contract layer includes an AI-enabled privacy-preservation sublayer that dynamically selects an appropriate privacy technique, tailored to the nature and purpose of each data request. This layer also features a feedback and incentive mechanism that incentivises patients to share their data by offering rewards. Lastly, the application layer serves as an interface for diverse applications, such as AI-enabled apps and data analysis tools, to access and utilise the shared data. Hence, BCR presents a robust, comprehensive approach to secure, privacy-aware, and incentivised data sharing in the biomedical domain.

A decentralized public-permissioned blockchain framework for enhanced security of health records in fog computing

Medical health records comprise sensitive patient data for precise diagnosis and successive treatment. However, it must be stored and shared securely to protect data privacy. Generally, health records are kept on centralized servers, which raise the risk of security breaches and involve trust in a single authority that cannot efficiently defend data from internal attacks. Blockchain (BC) is extensively used in medical health records management because of its decentralized and tamper-proof properties. This work introduces a public-permissioned BC technology with a decentralized ledger (DL) to manage medical health records in the fog computing layer. The considered BC is decentralized and allows the transmission of records within the decentralized network of records. The data blocks are hashed using the SHA-256 hash algorithm. Especially, an Adaptive RSA Digital Signature Algorithm (ARSA-DS) is developed to prevent data tampering with medical health records in the fog computing layer. Moreover, an Ebola Search Optimization based Key Selection (ESO-KS) technique is employed to find the ideal key from the randomly generated keys to reduce processing time and increase overall efficiency. The proposed decentralized BC framework will help to preserve patient privacy and prevent the tampering of health records by attacks; moreover, it is efficient in terms of confidentiality, integrity, and availability.

BENIGREEN: Blockchain-Based Energy-Efficient Privacy-Preserving Scheme for Green IoT

The energy conservative extension of Internet-of-Thing (IoT), green IoT, is a revolutionary approach in connecting people, processes, and things in an energy-efficient way. The existing research works in the domain of green IoTs forbid the use of decentralized management (e.g., blockchain) of data due to its intrinsic disadvantages of block mining, transaction incentives, and less throughput. However, the advantages of blockchains urge the development of new decentralized strategies utilizing the architecture of green IoTs. The infancy stage of the conjunction between green IoTs and blockchains, the need of decentralization in energy management in green IoTs motivate us for the present research. In this paper, we address the problems of decentralization, energy-conservation, and privacy simultaneously. We introduce the first blockchain-based privacy-preserving framework for green IoTs. We name this framework as "Blockchain-based ENergy-efficient and prIvacy-preserving data management scheme for GREEN-iot (BENIGREEN)" for smart cities. BENIGREEN uses weight metrics for energy-efficient cluster heads selection. The use of weight metrics is a novel contribution in the field of green IoTs. Further, we integrate a decentralized blockchain framework with an authentication scheme for secure transmission among Base Station (BS) and sensor nodes by employing registration, certification, and revocation phases. Consequently, BS allocates the collected information from cluster heads to decentralized blockchain and cloud storage. The BS eliminates all malicious nodes from the network by employing a certificate revocation process. We execute thorough experiments in terms of the operation time, throughput, average energy consumption, and computational latency. The comparative analysis with the state-of-the-art schemes show that BENIGREEN is efficient for IoT paradigm.

HPCLS-BC: A novel blockchain framework using heterogeneous peer-node and cloud-based ledger storage for Internet of Things applications

Internet of Things (IoT) has gained its widespread application in various fields. Integrating blockchain technology with IoT-based applications has been attracting more research enthusiasm. On the other hand, the number of peer nodes and distributed ledgers is one vital factor for the security of blockchain-based applications. Due to the enormous number of IoT terminal devices, IoT can potentially enhance the security of blockchain, supposing IoT terminal devices play the role of peer nodes. However, the combination of blockchain and IoT faces several challenges. The distributed ledger storage on peer node, which will consume too much storage space of IoT terminal devices, must be solved properly. With the increase of IoT terminal devices for use as peer nodes, especially full nodes, the performance of blockchain will face another challenge. The additional network traffic of IoT terminal devices must also be well-controlled. In this paper, a Heterogeneous Peer-node and Cloud-based Ledger Storage Blockchain (HPCLS-BC) is suggested, in which smart phone, tablet Personal Computer (PC) and conventional computer play the role of peer nodes. Cloud-based ledger storage is proposed to alleviate the pressure of ledger storage on peer nodes, and to make sure the number of peer nodes always equals that of the distributed ledgers. An anti-telecom-fraud scenario is presented to illustrate its application. Comparative experiment results show that HPCLS-BC is competent to blockchain application with lightweight and middleweight pressure, and does not lead to obvious additional network traffic for mobile peer nodes.

Blockchain-Powered Healthcare Systems: Enhancing Scalability and Security with Hybrid Deep Learning.

The rapid advancements in technology have paved the way for innovative solutions in the healthcare domain, aiming to improve scalability and security while enhancing patient care. This abstract introduces a cutting-edge approach, leveraging blockchain technology and hybrid deep learning techniques to revolutionize healthcare systems. Blockchain technology provides a decentralized and transparent framework, enabling secure data storage, sharing, and access control. By integrating blockchain into healthcare systems, data integrity, privacy, and interoperability can be ensured while eliminating the reliance on centralized authorities. In conjunction with blockchain, hybrid deep learning techniques offer powerful capabilities for data analysis and decision making in healthcare. Combining the strengths of deep learning algorithms with traditional machine learning approaches, hybrid deep learning enables accurate and efficient processing of complex healthcare data, including medical records, images, and sensor data. This research proposes a permissions-based blockchain framework for scalable and secure healthcare systems, integrating hybrid deep learning models. The framework ensures that only authorized entities can access and modify sensitive health information, preserving patient privacy while facilitating seamless data sharing and collaboration among healthcare providers. Additionally, the hybrid deep learning models enable real-time analysis of large-scale healthcare data, facilitating timely diagnosis, treatment recommendations, and disease prediction. The integration of blockchain and hybrid deep learning presents numerous benefits, including enhanced scalability, improved security, interoperability, and informed decision making in healthcare systems. However, challenges such as computational complexity, regulatory compliance, and ethical considerations need to be addressed for successful implementation. By harnessing the potential of blockchain and hybrid deep learning, healthcare systems can overcome traditional limitations, promoting efficient and secure data management, personalized patient care, and advancements in medical research. The proposed framework lays the foundation for a future healthcare ecosystem that prioritizes scalability, security, and improved patient outcomes.

BlockDetective: A GCN‐based student–teacher framework for blockchain anomaly detection

AbstractThe anonymous and tamper‐proof nature of the blockchain poses significant challenges in auditing and regulating the behaviour and data on the chain. Criminal activities and anomalies are frequently changing, and fraudsters are devising new ways to evade detection. Moreover, the high volume and complexity of transactions and asymmetric errors make data classification more challenging. Also, class imbalances and high labelling costs are hindering the development of effective algorithms. In response to these issues, the authors present BlockDetective, a novel framework based on GCN that utilizes student–teacher architecture to detect fraudulent cryptocurrency transactions that are related to money laundering. The authors’ method leverages pre‐training and fine‐tuning, allowing the pre‐trained model (teacher) to adapt better to the new data distribution and enhance the prediction performance while teaching a new, light‐weight model (student) that provides abstract and top‐level information. The authors’ experimental results show that BlockDetective outperforms state‐of‐the‐art research methods by achieving top‐notch performance in detecting fraudulent transactions on the blockchain. This framework can assist regulators and auditors in detecting and preventing fraudulent activities on the blockchain, thereby promoting a more secure and transparent financial system.

The “SMARTER” framework and real application cases of blockchain

Today, blockchain is a very critical technology for many industrial operations. In this study, we aim to study the applications of blockchain in the industry. We reveal the latest blockchain-supported solutions developed by companies, identify the key challenges and discuss the long-term benefits of blockchain adoption. To be specific, this study adopts a multi-methodological approach by systematically reviewing the literature, and conducting exploratory case studies and a semi-structured interview. Based on the findings, we establish a “SMARTER” framework to illustrate the “SMART” challenges that companies may face and discuss the “ER” long-term benefits that can be generated to the business enterprises. We further propose some important future research areas, such as the impacts of blockchain technology to support corporate social responsibility, the co-opetition effect when the companies form partnership in the blockchain development, the feasibility of integration between blockchain technology and other disruptive technologies, and the values of blockchain adoption in the industry.

ILEDGER: A Lightweight Blockchain Framework with New Consensus Method for IoT Applications

Considering the growth of the IoT network, there is a demand for a decentralized solution. Incorporating the blockchain technology will eliminate the challenges faced in centralized solutions, such as i) high infrastructure, ii) maintenance cost, iii) lack of transparency, iv) privacy, and v) data tampering. Blockchain-based IoT network allows businesses to access and share the IoT data within their organization without a central authority. Data in the blockchain are stored as blocks, which should be validated and added to the chain, for this consensus mechanism plays a significant role. However, existing methods are not designed for IoT applications and lack features like i) decentralization, ii) scalability, iii) throughput, iv) faster convergence, and v) network overhead. Moreover, current blockchain frameworks failed to support resource-constrained IoT applications. In this paper, we proposed a new consensus method (WoG) and a lightweight blockchain framework (iLEDGER), mainly for resource-constrained IoT applications in a permissioned environment. The proposed work is tested in an application that tracks the assets using IoT devices (Raspberry Pi 4 and RFID). Furthermore, the proposed consensus method is analyzed against benign failures, and performance parameters such as CPU usage, memory usage, throughput, transaction execution time, and block generation time are compared with state-of-the-art methods.

Secure and Efficient Stigmergy-Empowered Blockchain Framework for Heterogeneous Collaborative Services in the Internet of Vehicles

The Internet of Vehicles (IoV) is expected to address the significant problems of modern transportation through collaboration among various entities. It is crucial to establish a collaborative mechanism for untrusted entities to achieve the full potential of IoV. Blockchain is a promising solution for building a credible environment for entities. However, because of the difference and complexity of services, using a classical blockchain system to support heterogeneous collaborative services in IoV causes some challenges in smart contract support, system security, and computational efficiency. In this article, we propose a stigmergy-empowered blockchain framework called SEB, which enables untrusted IoV entities to perform heterogeneous collaborative services conveniently, securely, and efficiently. Specifically, we first explore the characteristics of collaborative services and analyze the challenges of existing blockchain systems. Furthermore, we introduce the stigmergy of swarm intelligence into blockchain and integrate the stigmergy into SEB by designing a new transaction data structure, a digital pheromone and transaction selection rules, and a new transaction selection algorithm. Simulation experiments demonstrate that compared with IOTA, SEB reduces smart contract transaction sorting searches by approximately 56%, increases the average chain length by up to approximately 87%, and decreases the computation time of the transaction selection algorithm by up to approximately 98%.

Main-Secondary Blockchain Framework: Cross-Domain Trust Management Mechanism Using Trust Ticket

Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) can facilitate smart manufacturing and increase productivity through revolutionary techniques. As production processes are getting more sophisticated, an entire production process is usually completed collaboratively by multiple administrative domains (e.g., factories). Trust management is an effective solution to establish trust relationship between the devices from different administrative domains. Recently, many researchers integrate blockchain into trust management mechanisms. However, the existing methods have the shortcoming of low throughput, high delay and storage overhead, so cannot meet scalability requirements of large-scale IIoT multi-domains scenarios. Therefore, this paper proposes a master-slave chain framework to realize a scalable cross-domain trust management mechanism (MSB-CTrust), where trust tickets are used to resolve the heterogeneity issue of trust evaluation methods in different domains. Besides, MSB-CTrust provides embedded salary distribution rules, which are used to encourage all devices to behave honestly based on a revenue strategy game. Performance evaluations in the experiments show the feasibility and effectiveness of MSB-CTrust.

A Hybrid Multi-user Cloud Access Control based Block Chain Framework for Privacy Preserving Distributed Databases

Most of the traditional medical applications are insecure and difficult to compute the data integrity with variable hash size. Traditional medical data security systems are insecure and it depend on static parameters for data security. Also, distributed based cloud storage systems are independent of integrity computational and data security due to unstructured data and computational memory. As the size of the data and its dimensions are increasing in the public and private cloud servers, it is difficult to provide the machine learning based privacy preserving in cloud computing environment. Block-chain technology plays a vital role for large cloud databases. Most of the conventional block-chain frameworks are based on the existing integrity and confidentiality models. Also, these models are based on the data size and file format. In this model, a novel integrity verification and encryption framework is designed and implemented in cloud environment. In order to overcome these problems in the cloud computing environment, a hybrid integrity and security-based block-chain framework is designed and implemented on the large distributed databases. In this framework,a novel decision tree classifier is used along with non-linear mathematical hash algorithm and advanced attribute-based encryption models are used to improve the privacy of multiple users on the large cloud datasets. Experimental results proved that the proposed advanced privacy preserving based block-chain technology has better efficiency than the traditional block-chain based privacy preserving systems on large distributed databases.

Blockchain Framework of UiTM Postgraduate Tracking System (UPTrackS) for Good Governance Practice

Traditional bureaucracy in universities deters good governance. Moving to digital bureaucracy, like digital governance that uses blockchain technology, improves transparency, accountability, and efficiency. A digital architecture called UiTM Postgraduate Tracking System (UPTrackS) leverages blockchain technology to manage governance procedures. According to a poll on UPTrackS deployment, the system delivers sound governance, with a confidence rating of 7.9 out of 10. Enhancing the computer literacy skills of administrative employees and improving the user interface of the system they use are necessary steps to enhance efficiency. Additionally, implementing these changes can lead to better administrative practices that adhere to good governance principles.

Review Study: Blockchain Application in Payroll System

In this era, where business execution is primarily reliant on information, the sooner and more precisely it is received, the better. Blockchain is great for information sharing because it provides instant, shareable, and entirely transparent data kept in an immutable ledger that only network users with permission may access. On the blockchain network, virtually any asset may be recorded and exchanged, reducing risk and expense for all parties involved. This research focuses on blockchain payroll implementation. It is critical to employ the proper tactics to preserve and improve payroll, as blockchain technology is critical for securing the payroll system because it can move both value and information. This review paper's main point is that blockchain technology can be used to reduce overhead and administrative burden, reduce tax spending, and promote openness and accountability in a variety of situations. Blockchain challenges to the payroll system and implementation issues have been highlighted. Given the quantity and complexity of blockchain issues, many of the most significant blockchain roadblocks are characteristic of any new technology's growing pains. The benefits and challenges of using blockchain technology in payroll procedures were discussed after the study. It was determined that doing so would make all employee records and employer payments matching instantly available at the minute level to various governmental organizations. At a fraction of the cost of current payroll compliance utilizing a fiat cryptocurrency, a blockchain payroll application will provide quick payroll compliance. A blockchain framework that is approved for use with payroll systems and is encrypted using the high-efficiency encryption algorithm to ensure its high security will need to be designed and evaluated.

Enabling secure lightweight mobile Narrowband Internet of Things (NB-IoT) applications using blockchain

Narrowband Internet of Things (NB-IoT) is a low bandwidth 3GPP communication standard transmitting small quantities of data over long distances at random intervals. However, as NB-IoT cannot support seamless handover between base stations, its applications are limited to stationary devices, which may result in the potential risk of fake base station connections in an attempt to maintain connectivity across cells. Considering characteristics such as low power consumption and high connection density, researchers envision using NB-IoT in mobile applications such as public-bike sharing, pet tracking etc. Connecting NB-IoT devices using decentralised architecture such as blockchain ensures seamless communication in mobile applications and eliminates bottlenecks due to multiple data requests observed in centralised networks. In this paper, we develop a hybrid blockchain framework facilitating mutual authentication between base stations to enhance user privacy and prevent fake base station connections and certificate transfers. Zero-knowledge proof used as the consensus algorithm enhances user privacy and message confidentiality. IoT devices are designed to store the hashes of their approved transactions as a linear hash chain instead of the complete merkle tree to minimise hash verification complexity. Additionally, base station memory is partitioned dynamically to enhance scalability and memory utilisation efficiency. We prototype our framework on Remix IDE in Ethereum and implement it on Raspberry Pi 4. The security of the proposed framework is formally verified using Scyther. Further, we show that our approach achieves 80.50% lower computational power, 74.73% lower execution time and 50% lower memory, respectively, in comparison with existing schemes making our proposed scheme lightweight.

A Novel Blockchain Framework for Digital Forensics in Cloud Environment Using Multi-objective Krill Herd Cuckoo Search Optimization Algorithm

A Novel Blockchain Framework for Digital Forensics in Cloud Environment Using Multi-objective Krill Herd Cuckoo Search Optimization Algorithm

A novel and failsafe blockchain framework for secure OTA updates in connected autonomous vehicles

Connected Autonomous Vehicles (CAVs) are becoming data centers on wheels, amassing petabytes of data. They require a combination of software and hardware systems to operate reliably and simply in real-time. However, due to the transient nature of Vehicle to Vehicle (V2V) and Vehicle to Infrastructure (V2I) networks and CAVs' dependency on a connected software system, we need a new paradigm for secure and immutable data exchange, which emulates smart contracts. For this reason, CAV manufacturers need to maintain the latest version of software to protect CAVs from system failure and cyber threats in real-time, which is difficult with traditional centralized management. The key challenges that we must overcome are the authentication and secure sharing of the Over-The-Air (OTA) software updates and the scalability of distribution at the level of CAVs.This paper proposes a secure and scalable software updates framework in a distributed manner for the CAVs, leveraging Blockchain (BC) with smart contract technology. The framework is able to overcome slow processing speed, which is one of the significant limitations of BC in terms of lower latency and less packet overhead with a high level of security against possible cyber-attacks. We use a salting-based hashing scheme over the traditional Elliptic Curve Cryptography (ECC) Key. This process ensures multi-factor authenticated protection from malicious transactions while downloading and installing any new feature update in CAVs. Moreover, by using Hyperledger BC, our framework provides cost-free transactions while successfully upgrading and deploying OTA software patches in any system of CAVs. This paper extends our previous work [51] by analysing our proposed BC framework's immutability and load management capability. Our simulation results show that our proposed framework is robust, secure, and failsafe for CAV manufacturers and end-users.

Digital twin empowered lightweight and efficient blockchain for dynamic internet of vehicles

The Internet of Vehicles (IoV) has great potential for Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS), enabling interactive vehicle applications, such as advanced driving and infotainment. It is crucial to ensure the reliability during the vehicle-to-vehicle interaction process. Although the emerging blockchainhas superiority in handling security-related issues, existing blockchain-based schemes show weakness in highly dynamic IoV. Both the transaction broadcast and consensus process require multiple rounds of communication throughout the whole network, while the high relative speed between vehicles and dynamic topology resulting in the intermittent connections will degrade the efficiency of blockchain. In this paper, we propose a Digital Twin (DT)-enabled blockchain framework for dynamic IoV, which aims to reduce both the communication cost and the operational latency of blockchain. To address the dynamic context, we propose a DT construction strategy that jointly considers the DT migration and blockchain computing consumption. Moreover, a communication-efficient Local Perceptual Multi-Agent Deep Deterministic Policy Gradient (LPMA-DDPG) algorithm is designed to execute the DT construction strategy among edge servers in a decentralized manner. The simulation results show that the proposed framework can greatly reduce the communication cost, while achieving good security performance. The dynamic DT construction strategy shows superiority in operation latency compared with benchmark strategies. The decentralized LPMA-DDPG algorithm is helpful for implementing the optimal DT construction strategy in practical ITS.

Blockchain Framework for Collaborative Clinical Trials Auditing

Blockchain Framework for Collaborative Clinical Trials Auditing