Blockchain processing technique based on multiple hash chains for minimizing integrity errors of IoT data in cloud environments

Abstract

As IoT (Internet of Things) devices are diversified in the fields of use (manufacturing, health, medical, energy, home, automobile, transportation, etc.), it is becoming important to analyze and process data sent and received from IoT devices connected to the Internet. Data collected from IoT devices is highly dependent on secure storage in databases located in cloud environments. However, storing directly in a database located in a cloud environment makes it not only difficult to directly control IoT data, but also does not guarantee the integrity of IoT data due to a number of hazards (error and error handling, security attacks, etc.) that can arise from natural disasters and management neglect. In this paper, we propose an optimized hash processing technique that enables hierarchical distributed processing with an n-bit-size blockchain to minimize the loss of data generated from IoT devices deployed in distributed cloud environments. The proposed technique minimizes IoT data integrity errors as well as strengthening the role of intermediate media acting as gateways by interactively authenticating blockchains of n bits into n + 1 and n − 1 layers to normally validate IoT data sent and received from IoT data integrity errors. In particular, the proposed technique ensures the reliability of IoT information by validating hash values of IoT data in the process of storing index information of IoT data distributed in different locations in a blockchain in order to maintain the integrity of the data. Furthermore, the proposed technique ensures the linkage of IoT data by allowing minimal errors in the collected IoT data while simultaneously grouping their linkage information, thus optimizing the load balance after hash processing. In performance evaluation, the proposed technique reduced IoT data processing time by an average of 2.54 times. Blockchain generation time improved on average by 17.3% when linking IoT data. The asymmetric storage efficiency of IoT data according to hash code length is improved by 6.9% on average over existing techniques. Asymmetric storage speed according to the hash code length of the IoT data block was shown to be 10.3% faster on average than existing techniques. Integrity accuracy of IoT data is improved by 18.3% on average over existing techniques.