DESIGN AND DEVELOPMENT OF SECURITY SOLUTIONS IN BLOCKCHAIN

Abstract

In an era of increasing concerns over data privacy, security breaches, and fraud, blockchain offers a solution that empowers individuals and organizations to control their data and transactions. The transparency and immutability of blockchain records foster accountability and can significantly reduce the risk of fraud. Moreover, blockchain has the potential to enhance operational efficiency across industries. The medical field has increasingly embraced blockchain technology to address challenges related to critical data security, patient privacy, and operational efficiency. As healthcare systems become digitized, the need for robust mechanisms to protect sensitive patient information has never been more pressing. Despite the potential for improved security offered by blockchain, it has its own vulnerabilities. A significant issue is the occurrence of vulnerability in smart contracts, which can result in unforeseen exploits and considerable financial losses, as evidenced by events such as the DAO hack. This thesis delves into integrating blockchain in healthcare, addressing critical issues such as data privacy, security, access control, and scalability. It proposes solutions to enhance data security and privacy in healthcare systems by examining various existing studies and frameworks. The thesis makes a substantial contribution in designing security solutions, performing ex- tensive performance evaluations of blockchain networks, and developing a healthcare frame- work that leverages blockchain technology as follows: [1] An extensive systematic literature review has been undertaken to investigate the var- ious challenges associated with adopting blockchain solutions within the healthcare industry. This analysis underscores the intricate challenges associated with incorpo- rating blockchain into current healthcare frameworks, encompassing concerns regard- ing interoperability, data security, privacy, and adherence to regulatory standards. Additionally, it highlights the necessity for increased empirical investigations that evaluate blockchain technologies’ practical implementation and efficacy across diverse healthcare scenarios, including patient data management, supply chain integrity, and clinical trials. Alongside identifying these gaps, the review also highlights the funda- mental challenges that blockchain technology may pose. vii [2] As organizations and developers adopt blockchain solutions for various applications, it is essential to assess the performance of these platforms to inform decisions that align with their requirements and use cases. This research work analyzes the performance of several popular blockchain platforms to fill a gap in the literature. [3] It contributes to the smart contract vulnerability detection field by employing ad- vanced machine learning techniques to develop a multi-label classification model with an impressive accuracy of 95.05% and a detection time of 0.11 seconds. By leveraging a diverse dataset of known vulnerabilities, the adopted approach not only identifies multiple vulnerabilities within a smart contract but also enhances the efficiency of detection process, addressing the limitations of traditional expert-defined criteria. [4] To ensure security and access control, an efficient cryptographic scheme is proposed. Conventional access-control mechanisms in blockchain encounter data ownership and management difficulties, particularly when data owners lack trust in storage providers. However, encryption before uploading offers some advantages. Traditional techniques such as Elliptic Curve Cryptography (ECC), RSA, and Advanced Encryption Stan- dard (AES) face key management and precise control challenges. The proposed ci- phertext policy attribute-based encryption mechanism allows data owners to establish access policies and encrypt information before uploading, thereby improving security in decentralized settings. The experimental results demonstrate the relative perfor- mance of the proposed scheme, showing a significant reduction in computational costs. [5] Healthcare systems struggle with securing Electronic Health Records (EHRs) due to vulnerabilities in centralized databases, leading to potential cyber threats. This research proposes using Hyperledger Fabric (HLF) with attribute-based access control and AES-256 encryption to protect sensitive data. A distributed off-chain storage solution is integrated to address scalability issues for efficient data management. The Performance evaluation, analysis, and experimental results indicate that the proposed solutions offer a viable and effective environment. Moreover, the comparative study demon- strates that the suggested approaches outperform the existing solutions.