Digital Forensics Architecture for Evidence Collection and Provenance Preservation in IaaS Cloud Environment Using SDN and Blockchain Technology
Cloud forensics is an intelligent evolution of digital forensics that defends against cyber-crimes. However, centralized evidence collection and preservation minimizes the reliability of digital evidence. To resolve this severe problem, this paper proposes a novel digital forensic architecture using...
Main Authors: | , |
---|---|
Format: | Article |
Language: | English |
Published: |
IEEE
2019-01-01
|
Series: | IEEE Access |
Subjects: | |
Online Access: | https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/8865056/ |
id |
doaj-27286d9c3893461097d08ca67a16ee1c |
---|---|
record_format |
Article |
spelling |
doaj-27286d9c3893461097d08ca67a16ee1c2021-03-29T23:03:40ZengIEEEIEEE Access2169-35362019-01-01715334915336410.1109/ACCESS.2019.29469788865056Digital Forensics Architecture for Evidence Collection and Provenance Preservation in IaaS Cloud Environment Using SDN and Blockchain TechnologyMehran Pourvahab0https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0034-5506Gholamhossein Ekbatanifard1https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3216-0511Department of Computer Engineering, Islamic Azad University, Rasht Branch, Rasht, IranDepartment of Computer Engineering, Islamic Azad University, Lahijan Branch, Lahijan, IranCloud forensics is an intelligent evolution of digital forensics that defends against cyber-crimes. However, centralized evidence collection and preservation minimizes the reliability of digital evidence. To resolve this severe problem, this paper proposes a novel digital forensic architecture using fast-growing Software-Defined Networking (SDN) and Blockchain technology for Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) cloud. In this proposed forensic architecture, the evidence is collected and preserved in the blockchain that is distributed among multiple peers. To protect the system from unauthorized users, Secure Ring Verification based Authentication (SRVA) scheme is proposed. To strengthen the cloud environment, secret keys are generated optimally by using Harmony Search Optimization (HSO) algorithm. All data are encrypted based on the sensitivity level and stored in the cloud server. For encryption, Sensitivity Aware Deep Elliptic Curve Cryptography (SA-DECC) algorithm is presented. For every data stored in the cloud, a block is created in the SDN controller and the history of data is recorded as metadata. In each block, the Merkle hash tree is built by using Secure Hashing Algorithm-3 (SHA-3). Our system allows users to trace their data by deploying Fuzzy based Smart Contracts (FCS). Finally, evidence analysis is enabled by constructing Logical Graph of Evidence (LGoE) collected from the blockchain. Experiments are conducted in an integrated environment of java (for cloud and blockchain) and network simulator-3.26 (for SDN). The extensive analysis shows that proposed forensic architecture shows promising results in Response time, Evidence insertion time, Evidence verification time, Communication overhead, Hash computation time, Key generation time, Encryption time, Decryption time and total change rate.https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/8865056/Software-defined networkingblockchainevidence collectioncloud forensicssecurity |
collection |
DOAJ |
language |
English |
format |
Article |
sources |
DOAJ |
author |
Mehran Pourvahab Gholamhossein Ekbatanifard |
spellingShingle |
Mehran Pourvahab Gholamhossein Ekbatanifard Digital Forensics Architecture for Evidence Collection and Provenance Preservation in IaaS Cloud Environment Using SDN and Blockchain Technology IEEE Access Software-defined networking blockchain evidence collection cloud forensics security |
author_facet |
Mehran Pourvahab Gholamhossein Ekbatanifard |
author_sort |
Mehran Pourvahab |
title |
Digital Forensics Architecture for Evidence Collection and Provenance Preservation in IaaS Cloud Environment Using SDN and Blockchain Technology |
title_short |
Digital Forensics Architecture for Evidence Collection and Provenance Preservation in IaaS Cloud Environment Using SDN and Blockchain Technology |
title_full |
Digital Forensics Architecture for Evidence Collection and Provenance Preservation in IaaS Cloud Environment Using SDN and Blockchain Technology |
title_fullStr |
Digital Forensics Architecture for Evidence Collection and Provenance Preservation in IaaS Cloud Environment Using SDN and Blockchain Technology |
title_full_unstemmed |
Digital Forensics Architecture for Evidence Collection and Provenance Preservation in IaaS Cloud Environment Using SDN and Blockchain Technology |
title_sort |
digital forensics architecture for evidence collection and provenance preservation in iaas cloud environment using sdn and blockchain technology |
publisher |
IEEE |
series |
IEEE Access |
issn |
2169-3536 |
publishDate |
2019-01-01 |
description |
Cloud forensics is an intelligent evolution of digital forensics that defends against cyber-crimes. However, centralized evidence collection and preservation minimizes the reliability of digital evidence. To resolve this severe problem, this paper proposes a novel digital forensic architecture using fast-growing Software-Defined Networking (SDN) and Blockchain technology for Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) cloud. In this proposed forensic architecture, the evidence is collected and preserved in the blockchain that is distributed among multiple peers. To protect the system from unauthorized users, Secure Ring Verification based Authentication (SRVA) scheme is proposed. To strengthen the cloud environment, secret keys are generated optimally by using Harmony Search Optimization (HSO) algorithm. All data are encrypted based on the sensitivity level and stored in the cloud server. For encryption, Sensitivity Aware Deep Elliptic Curve Cryptography (SA-DECC) algorithm is presented. For every data stored in the cloud, a block is created in the SDN controller and the history of data is recorded as metadata. In each block, the Merkle hash tree is built by using Secure Hashing Algorithm-3 (SHA-3). Our system allows users to trace their data by deploying Fuzzy based Smart Contracts (FCS). Finally, evidence analysis is enabled by constructing Logical Graph of Evidence (LGoE) collected from the blockchain. Experiments are conducted in an integrated environment of java (for cloud and blockchain) and network simulator-3.26 (for SDN). The extensive analysis shows that proposed forensic architecture shows promising results in Response time, Evidence insertion time, Evidence verification time, Communication overhead, Hash computation time, Key generation time, Encryption time, Decryption time and total change rate. |
topic |
Software-defined networking blockchain evidence collection cloud forensics security |
url |
https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/8865056/ |
work_keys_str_mv |
AT mehranpourvahab digitalforensicsarchitectureforevidencecollectionandprovenancepreservationiniaascloudenvironmentusingsdnandblockchaintechnology AT gholamhosseinekbatanifard digitalforensicsarchitectureforevidencecollectionandprovenancepreservationiniaascloudenvironmentusingsdnandblockchaintechnology |
_version_ |
1724190188636209152 |