Blockchain-Based Privacy-Preserving Deduplication and Integrity Auditing in Cloud Storage

Qingyang Zhang, Shuai Qian, Jie Cui, Hong Zhong, Fengqun Wang, Debiao He

Abstract: Ensuring cloud data security and reducing cloud storage costs have become particularly important. Many schemes expose user file ownership privacy when deduplicating authentication tags and during integrity auditing. Moreover, key management becomes more difficult as the number of files increases. Also, many audit schemes rely on third-party auditors (TPAs), but finding a fully trustworthy TPA is challenging. Therefore, we propose a blockchain-based integrity audit scheme supporting data deduplication. It protects file tag privacy during deduplication of ciphertexts and authentication tags, safeguards audit proof privacy, and effectively protects user file ownership privacy. To reduce key management costs, we introduce identity-based broadcast encryption (IBBE) that does not require interaction with key servers, eliminating additional communication costs. Additionally, we use smart contracts for integrity auditing, eliminating the need for a fully trusted TPA. We evaluate the proposed scheme through security and theoretical analyses and a series of experiments, demonstrating its efficiency and practicality.