Data Provenance in Cloud using Blockchain

Assurance of data transfer within intra-cloud and inter-cloud environments is very crucial. Typical assurance of data focuses on ensuring the confidentiality, integrity and availability of the data contents. However, assurance of the ancestry of the data (where the data came from) is a challenge in cloud environments. Data provenance addresses such issue based on the detailed derivation of data objects. If true data provenance existed in the cloud for all data stored on cloud storage, distributed data computations, data exchanges and transactions, detecting insider attacks, reproducing research results, and identifying the exact source of system/network intrusions would be achievable. In this project, we focus on developing a cloud based data provenance framework using blockchain that tracks all data operations and maintains the provenance data in an immutable manner. The provenance data gets anchored on the blockchain by keeping user privacy under consideration. A preliminary prototype of this architecture has been developed in ownCloud and is available in form of a web service.

Papers: - Cloud’18, CCGrid’17, UEMCON’17, ICICS’17

Cybersecurity Information Sharing

Well articulated and highly crafted cyber attacks are causing a great loss to the organizations (private and government) by exposing their proprietary information and disrupting critical resources. Adopting a collaborative approach of sharing cyber-threat information among organizations is envisioned to help them in developing proactive defense strategies against possible cyber crimes. However, without appropriate incentivization, the organizations hesitate to participate in the sharing process. In this project, we investigate to find answers to the following questions: (1) how can an organization be induced to share its vulnerability information in CYBersecurity information EXchange (CYBEX) framework?, (2) how to design incentivization schemes that CYBEX can adopt to motivate organizations to participate in the sharing framework?, (3) what impact does cyber-threat information sharing make on the an organization's cybersecurity investment?, (4) what are the best possible mechanisms to ensure privacy preservations during information sharing?, (5) how can the blockchain's distributed ledger be integrated to ensure information sharing provenance?

Papers: - GameSec’17, GameNets’17, JCSS’16, ICC’15, CSS’15