ForensiBlock: A Provenance-Driven Blockchain Framework for Data Forensics and Auditability

Fuente: arXiv
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Main Authors: Akbarfam, Asma Jodeiri, Heidaripour, Mahdieh, Maleki, Hoda, Dorai, Gokila, Agrawal, Gagan
Format: Preprint
Published: 2023
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author Akbarfam, Asma Jodeiri
Heidaripour, Mahdieh
Maleki, Hoda
Dorai, Gokila
Agrawal, Gagan
author_facet Akbarfam, Asma Jodeiri
Heidaripour, Mahdieh
Maleki, Hoda
Dorai, Gokila
Agrawal, Gagan
contents Maintaining accurate provenance records is paramount in digital forensics, as they underpin evidence credibility and integrity, addressing essential aspects like accountability and reproducibility. Blockchains have several properties that can address these requirements. Previous systems utilized public blockchains, i.e., treated blockchain as a black box, and benefiting from the immutability property. However, the blockchain was accessible to everyone, giving rise to security concerns and moreover, efficient extraction of provenance faces challenges due to the enormous scale and complexity of digital data. This necessitates a tailored blockchain design for digital forensics. Our solution, Forensiblock has a novel design that automates investigation steps, ensures secure data access, traces data origins, preserves records, and expedites provenance extraction. Forensiblock incorporates Role-Based Access Control with Staged Authorization (RBAC-SA) and a distributed Merkle root for case tracking. These features support authorized resource access with an efficient retrieval of provenance records. Particularly, comparing two methods for extracting provenance records off chain storage retrieval with Merkle root verification and a brute-force search the offchain method is significantly better, especially as the blockchain size and number of cases increase. We also found that our distributed Merkle root creation slightly increases smart contract processing time but significantly improves history access. Overall, we show that Forensiblock offers secure, efficient, and reliable handling of digital forensic data
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2308_03927
institution arXiv
publishDate 2023
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle ForensiBlock: A Provenance-Driven Blockchain Framework for Data Forensics and Auditability
Akbarfam, Asma Jodeiri
Heidaripour, Mahdieh
Maleki, Hoda
Dorai, Gokila
Agrawal, Gagan
Cryptography and Security
Maintaining accurate provenance records is paramount in digital forensics, as they underpin evidence credibility and integrity, addressing essential aspects like accountability and reproducibility. Blockchains have several properties that can address these requirements. Previous systems utilized public blockchains, i.e., treated blockchain as a black box, and benefiting from the immutability property. However, the blockchain was accessible to everyone, giving rise to security concerns and moreover, efficient extraction of provenance faces challenges due to the enormous scale and complexity of digital data. This necessitates a tailored blockchain design for digital forensics. Our solution, Forensiblock has a novel design that automates investigation steps, ensures secure data access, traces data origins, preserves records, and expedites provenance extraction. Forensiblock incorporates Role-Based Access Control with Staged Authorization (RBAC-SA) and a distributed Merkle root for case tracking. These features support authorized resource access with an efficient retrieval of provenance records. Particularly, comparing two methods for extracting provenance records off chain storage retrieval with Merkle root verification and a brute-force search the offchain method is significantly better, especially as the blockchain size and number of cases increase. We also found that our distributed Merkle root creation slightly increases smart contract processing time but significantly improves history access. Overall, we show that Forensiblock offers secure, efficient, and reliable handling of digital forensic data
title ForensiBlock: A Provenance-Driven Blockchain Framework for Data Forensics and Auditability
topic Cryptography and Security
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2308.03927