Blockchain for Distributed Systems Security

Sachin Shetty, Charles A. Kamhoua, Laurent L. Njilla, Sachin S. Shetty, Charles A. Kamhoua, Laurent L. Njilla

• Publisher: Wiley-IEEE Computer Society Pr
• Year: 2019
• ISBN:
  9781119519584
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Computer Science
• Subtopic: Cryptography
• Index: Computer Science

AN ESSENTIAL GUIDE TO USING BLOCKCHAIN TO PROVIDE FLEXIBILITY, COST-SAVINGS, AND SECURITY TO DATA MANAGEMENT, DATA ANALYSIS, AND INFORMATION SHARING

Blockchain for Distributed Systems Security contains a description of the properties that underpin the formal foundations of Blockchain technologies and explores the practical issues for deployment in cloud and Internet of Things (IoT) platforms. The authors—noted experts in the field—present security and privacy issues that must be addressed for Blockchain technologies to be adopted for civilian and military domains. The book covers a range of topics including data provenance in cloud storage, secure IoT models, auditing architecture, and empirical validation of permissioned Blockchain platforms.

The book's security and privacy analysis helps with an understanding of the basics of Blockchain and it explores the quantifying impact of the new attack surfaces introduced by Blockchain technologies and platforms. In addition, the book contains relevant and current updates on the topic. This important resource:

• Provides an overview of Blockchain-based secure data management and storage for cloud and IoT
• Covers cutting-edge research findings on topics including invariant-based supply chain protection, information sharing framework, and trust worthy information federation
• Addresses security and privacy concerns in Blockchain in key areas, such as preventing digital currency miners from launching attacks against mining pools, empirical analysis of the attack surface of Blockchain, and more

Written for researchers and experts in computer science and engineering, Blockchain for Distributed Systems Security contains the most recent information and academic research to provide an understanding of the application of Blockchain technology.

Part I
Introduction to Blockchain

1
Introduction

Sachin S. Shetty,¹ Laurent Njilla,² and Charles A. Kamhoua³

¹Old Dominion University, Virginia Modeling, Analysis and Simulation Center, Norfolk, VA, USA

²US Air Force Research Lab, Cyber Assurance Branch, Rome, NY, USA

³US Army Research Laboratory, Network Security Branch, Adelphi, MD, USA

1.1 Blockchain Overview

Blockchain technology has attracted tremendous interest from a wide range of stakeholders, which include finance, healthcare, utilities, real estate, and government agencies [1–5]. Examples of potential applications of this technology are claims processing, transparency and auditing of operations, identity management, supply chain provenance to address the threat of counterfeit products, and integrity of the information acquired from Internet of Things (IoT) devices. Blockchains are a shared, distributed, and fault-tolerant database that every participant in the network can share, but no entity can control. The technology is designed to operate in a highly contested environment against adversaries who are determined to compromise. Blockchains assume the presence of adversaries in the network and nullify the adversarial strategies by harnessing the computational capabilities of the honest nodes, and the information exchanged is resilient to manipulation and destruction. Blockchains facilitate the development of trustworthy networks in a trustless environment.

The premise of blockchain is that applications do not need a trusted central authority to operate and can function in a decentralized fashion. Blockchain enables exchange of information among distrusting entities. Blockchain enables trustless networks and allows entities to engage in transactions in the absence of mutual trust. There is an assumption that a communication medium could be compromised by insiders or outsiders. The reconciliation process between entities is sped up due to the absence of a trusted central authority or intermediary. Tampering of blockchains is extremely challenging due to the use of a cryptographic data structure and no reliability of secrets. Blockchain networks are fault tolerant, which allows nodes to eliminate compromised nodes.

Blockchains have the following advantages over centralized databases: (i) ability to directly share a database across diverse boundaries of trust in situations where it is difficult to identify a trusted, centralized arbitrator to enforce constraints of proof of authorization and validity. In a blockchain, transactions leverage their own proof of validity and authorization based on a verification process managed by multiple validating nodes and a consensus mechanism that ensures synchronization; and (ii) ability to provide robustness in an economical fashion without the need for expensive infrastructure for replication and disaster recovery. Blockchain requires no configuration to connect and synchronize nodes in a peer-to-peer (p2p) fashion, with built-in redundancy and no need for close monitoring. It can tolerate multiple communication link failures, allows external users to transmit transactions to any node, and ensures disconnected nodes will be caught up on missed transactions.

Blockchain's distributed database maintains a continuously growing list of records, called blocks, secured from tampering and revision by distributed storage and continuous verification. The blocks contain a temporal listing of transactions that are stored in a public ledger using a persistent, immutable, and append-only data structure that is globally viewable by every participant in the underlying p2p network. When such an elegant data structure is considered to track data transactions in a distributed environment, the block structure contains attributes such as the set of user transactions, a timestamp, a reference to a previous block in the blockchain, Merkle root of the transactions, and so on. In this manner, the blocks are linked together to form a chain, where the hash of the previous blocks helps to maintain the integrity of the whole blockchain (Figure 1.1).

Figure 1.1 Block structure.

1.1.1 Blockchain Building Blocks

Blockchain technology's effectiveness hinges on the following three main components: a decentralized network, distributed consensus, and cryptographically secure algorithms. Figure 1.2 illustrates the basic blockchain architecture.

Figure 1.2 Blockchain architecture.

The key features of each of the components are as follows:

• Decentralized Network—The function of the decentralized network is to ensure the propagation of transaction messages among the nodes responsible for maintaining the distributed ledger. The network protocol allows the transaction message to be broadcast from any node to all nodes in the decentralized network. However, the network is not a pure broadcast medium and allows nodes to propagate messages that represent valid transactions. The network can be part of a private or public blockchain that has ramifications on network performance and security. Irrespective of whether the blockchain is public or private, the decentralized network is based on a p2p architecture. The nodes can join and leave freely. There is no centralized arbitrator. The network has built-in redundancy and robustness to mitigate node and link failures.
• Distributed Consensus—Blockchain uses consensus protocols over a decentralized p2p network for verification of transactions prior to adding blocks to the public ledger. The consensus protocol receives messages from the p2p network and inserts transactions in the distributed ledger. The consensus protocol is responsible for mining blocks and reaching consensus on their integration in the blockchain. The consensus protocol chooses the set of transactions that is accepted after passing a verification process. The verification process is determined by users and does not require a centralized administrator. The consensus protocols ensure that the newly added transactions are not at odds with the confirmed transactions in ...