Secure and efficient public auditing system of user data using hybrid AES-ECC crypto system with Merkle hash tree in blockchain.

Data auditing permits data owners to confirm the reliability of their personal information without obtaining it from an unsafe cloud. Advertising cloud storage has widely adopted this characteristic. Data integrity is more difficult to maintain, and data through the cloud is not always secure. The ability to access data remotely through cloud storage makes it necessary to protect it against unauthorized access, hackers, and other malicious activity. In order to overcome these concerns, a hybrid Advanced Encryption Standard- Elliptic Curve Cryptography (AES-ECC) algorithm and Merkle Hash (MHT) Tree is developed. The user data is sent to the cloud service provider via blockchain for storage purposes. The key generation and encryption are carried out using a hybrid AES-ECC encryption technique, which is used to generate both private and public keys. The encrypted user file is then divided into several blocks. The tags for the split encrypted blocks are then generated using SHA256, which provides the hash value of each smaller file. Cloud Service Provider (CSP) constructs an MHT by employing generated hashtags to return the proof to user information after establishing hashtags for encrypted file blocks in the blockchain storage. Merkle hash tree is frequently employed to validate data integrity. Furthermore, the third-party auditor determines if the proofs generated by CSP match one from the user to check the tamper. The simulation analysis shows that the accuracy, encryption, decryption, key generation, and execution time reached for the proposed approach is 96%, 190 s, 124 s, 5.9 s, and 440 s. The proposed algorithm effectively validates data integrity and provides improved data security in blockchain environment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]