Submitted:
22 September 2024
Posted:
23 September 2024
You are already at the latest version
Abstract
Keywords:
1. Introduction
- This paper introduces a new framework based on transformer model and NER to improve the accuracy of data classification (crucial vs. non-crucial) concerning user security in cloud environments, which borders irregularities associated with managing registered databases efficiently.
- It offers a new way to secure critical data with encryption addressed by the user and also serves as hash-based in nature, which change every time one access thus creating two nonces for nonce selection that aide no unauthorized tracking or accesses from malicious users.
- The proposed system integrates blockchain-based smart contracts for automated, tamper-proof access control with transparency and its associated reliability guarantees a robust defense against intra as well inter breach actors.
- The holistic nature and scalability of the proposed solution to handling sensitive user data in current state-of-the-art cloud environments distinguish it from a limited set of complimentary solutions but as part of an overall security strategy involving NLP, encryption, hashing end-to-end with blockchain smart contract
2. Related Work
3. Novelty of the Work
4. Secure and Privacy Preserving Crucial Data Management in Cloud Environment
4.1. NLP Modelling: Transformer Models with Named Entity Recognition
4.1.1. Variables
- : Input text sequence of tokens.
- : Embedding vector for token .
- : Positional encoding vector for token .
- : Combined input representation (embedding + positional encoding).
- : Query, Key, and Value matrices.
- : Dimensions for embeddings, attention heads, and feed-forward layers.
- h: Number of attention heads.
- : Transformer output representations for each token.
- : Predicted entity label for token .
- c: Number of entity classes.
4.1.2. Input Sequence Representation
4.1.3. Token Embedding and Positional Encoding
4.1.4. Self-Attention Mechanism
4.1.5. Multi-Head Attention
4.1.6. Feed-Forward Neural Network
4.1.7. Named Entity Recognition (NER)
4.1.8. Loss Function
4.2. Crucial Data Storage and Retrieval Modelling
4.2.1. Hashing with SHA-256
- Input: D (Crucial Data), n (Nonce)
- Hash Function:
- H is the hash output.
- || denotes concatenation.
- SHA−256 is the secure hash algorithm.
4.2.2. Encrypting with ECC
- Private Key:
- Public Key:where G is a point on the elliptic curve.
-
The crucial data D is encrypted with the recipient’s public key:where:
- −
- C is the ciphertext.
- −
- E represents the elliptic curve encryption function.
4.2.3. Splitting and Storing Crucial Data in Chunks
4.2.4. Storing Non-Crucial Data
4.2.5. Storing Metadata using Smart Contract
- Metadata for each chunk:
- Smart Contract Execution:
4.2.6. User Access and Access Control Using Smart Contract
- Access Request: The user sends a request to access their data to the cloud service.
- Access Control Check: The smart contract checks the access control by verifying the user’s credentials and authorization status:
- Metadata Retrieval: If authorized, the smart contract retrieves the metadata from the blockchain.
-
Nonce Update: For security, the nonce n is updated every time the user accesses the data:
- −
- Nonce Increment Method:
- −
- Random Nonce Method:
4.2.7. Decryption and Data Retrieval
- is the decrypted crucial data.
- D represents the elliptic curve decryption function.
4.3. 8. Changing Hash upon Data Access
4.3.1. Summary of Mathematical Equations
- Hashing:
- Encryption:
- Metadata Storage:
- Access Control Check:
- Nonce Update:
- Decryption:
- Hash Update:
5. Experimental Results and Discussion
5.1. Formula for Hash Generation Based on Nonce
- is the time for hash generation for nonce n.
- is the difficulty level of the hash for a given nonce n.
- a is a constant representing the base time unit for one hash computation.
- is the maximum difficulty level, beyond which the computation energy required becomes excessive.
5.2. Time for Hash Generation with Incremental Nonce
| User Data | Nonce Increment | Difficulty Level D | Time for Hash Generation (ms) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Credit Card | +1 per access | 3 | 42.14 |
| Passport | +1 per access | 4 | 79.87 |
| Government ID Card | +1 per access | 5 | 165.71 |
| Bitcoin Wallet | +1 per access | 6 | 321.11 |
5.3. Time for Hash Generation with Random Nonce
| User Data | Random Nonce n Random between 1-100 | Difficulty Level D | Time for Hash Generation (ms) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Credit Card | 21 | 3 | 44.12 |
| Passport | 37 | 4 | 86.44 |
| Government ID Card | 55 | 5 | 178.62 |
| Bitcoin Wallet | 81 | 6 | 345.47 |
5.4. Stopping Condition for Nonce Reset
- is the current difficulty level associated with the nonce n.
- is the predefined maximum difficulty level threshold.
6. Conclusions
References
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| Authors | Citation | Objectives | Findings |
|---|---|---|---|
| E. Zeydan, S. S. Arslan and M. Liyanage (2024) | [1] | How current Artificial Intelligence (AI)/Machine Learning (ML) frameworks and available cloud infrastructures in building end-to-end ML lifecycle management for healthcare systems and sensitive biomedical data. | Role of AI and ML for managing life cycle for sensitive user data. |
| M. Battula (2024) | [2] | Addressing security challenges in Multi-tenant database Management Systems in cloud environment. | Security improvements for the chunks stored in cloud cluster. |
| K. Sundar, G. Kiran Vishwak and S. G. Eswaran (2024) | [3] | Transformative approach to cloud-based community data sharing, seeking to redefine the dynamics of security and privacy. | Selection of appropriate encryption algorithm for maintaining and managing sensitive data. |
| O. Layode, H. N. N. Naiho, G. S. Adeleke, E. O. Udeh and T. T. Labake (2024) | [4] | Role of cybersecurity in addressing challenges faced for maintaining sensitive user data. | Use of artificial intelligence, blockchain, and machine learning in enhancing security measures in order to maintain sensitive data. |
| M. A. Alshammari, H. Hamdi, M. A. Mahmood, and A. A. A. El-Aziz (2024) | [6] | Secure solution for access control in cloud computing environments using blockchain. | By using blockchain technology efficiently, a more secure, scalable, and Transparent access control framework can be implemented. |
| M. Almasian, A Shafieinejad (2024) | [7] | Leveraging blockchain technology for secure access control of the user data. | Using blockchain to implement access control as smart contract, wherein user can request to access his file by logging a transaction in the blockchain. |
| V. G, D. M S, M. Hashmi, J. R. K and K. B V (2024) | [9] | Approach to detect VPN activity and block the user from accessing VPN services using packet sniffing. | Tracking unauthorized user access from the user using VPN service. |
| Fu, B., Fang, T., Zhang, L., Zhou, Y., and Xiao, H. (2024) | [10] | Combining advanced encryption standard algorithms with elliptic curve cryptography algorithms to generate encryption key pairs through elliptic curve cryptography algorithms. | Use of elliptic curve cryptography to generate key pairs for crypto wallet. |
| S. T. Bukhari, M. U. Janjua and J. Qadir, H. (2024) | [11] | Use of elliptic-curve cryptography (ECC) encryption algorithm for storing the seed phrase online by encrypting the seed phrase and using the splitting technique to store the crypto wallet seed phrase. | Generating key pairs for crypto wallets using ECC. |
| K. G. Babu, J. Naveen, P. V. Vamsi Dhar Reddy, A. Imam and V. S. Vetri Selvi (2023) | [12] | How original IP address can be tracked using Honeypot. | Tracking original IP address of unauthorized access of user data. |
| G. Sucharitha, V. Sitharamulu, S. N. Mohanty, A. Matta, and D Jose (2023) | [13] | Use of encryption to protect sensitive data. | Usage of Blockchain technology for secure key generation, and for access control while the immutability of the blockchain ensures the confidentiality of ciphertext. |
| B. Ranganatha Rao, B. Sujatha (2023) | [17] | Key reduction method to make the keys even shorter, which speeds up the Advanced Encryption standard (AES) encryption process. | Usage of ECC algorithm to improve time efficiency of overall system. |
| S. Khanum and K. Mustafa (2023) | [18] | Sensitive data protection using an air-gapped hardware wallet and transactional privacy by hashing the transaction with the blake3 algorithm. | Protection of sensitive data through hashing and encryption. |
| M. Kaur and A. B. Kaimal (2023) | [19] | Literature review on detecting cloud computing safety challenges and threats, also offers ideas for resolving data breach issues. | Identification of various security breaches that occurs in cloud environment. |
| J. Guffey and Y. Li (2023) | [20] | Study on cloud service misconfigurations often lead to massive data leakage or malicious code injection. | How unauthorized access can lead to leakage of sensitive data. |
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