Preface

The concept of a blockchain can be defined as a linked set of records maintained in a decentralized environment. The records in the blockchain are publicly accessible but cryptographically protected. An interesting property of the blockchain is that once some information has been recorded, it is impossible to alter the information after it was recorded. An example of a blockchain can be seen as a chain of blocks containing time-stamped digital documents in such a way that they cannot be backdated or modified in any way. The time-stamped digital documents are kept as a collection of records and are grouped into a set of blocks, which are chronologically linked by date and time.

Each time the blockchain needs to be updated; a new block is created and appended to the existing blockchain. Each block in the blockchain contains a hash of the previous block, a collection of records of its own, and the hashed value records, also known as Merkle trees, that correspond to the block before it. Depending on the nature of the blockchain, the information inside each block differs. For instance, when it comes to bitcoin, the blockchain is supposed to store the complete details about a transaction, namely the sender, the receiver and the number of coins, whereas a blockchain used for medical records is supposed to store the complete health history of a patient over time. As blockchains are distributed, efficient hashing techniques are used to ensure their integrity and robustness. Eleven chapters of this book are devoted to demonstrating the benefits and applications of blockchain.

“Introduction to Blockchain Technology”, in the first chapter, briefly explains what blockchain technology is all about. The chapter focuses on the nuances of blockchain technology, the protocol stack, and the most common consensus mechanisms used. Additionally, recent advances, challenges, and future trends of blockchain are discussed in this chapter.

The second chapter discusses the relationship between cybersecurity and blockchain. Blockchain technology plays a crucial role in strengthening cybersecurity in various industries due to its decentralized nature. Through this chapter, the readers will get to know how blockchain technology is helping in providing cybersecurity to the different sectors of industries with its advantages and disadvantages of blockchain. The author also explores the role of blockchain in cybersecurity and the future benefits of blockchain technology to strengthen cybersecurity.

A majority of specialists are working on the acceptance of blockchain to safeguard IoT (Internet of Things) devices, systems, and information. Chapter 3 will examine the methods proposed by previous analysts through which blockchain can carry the expense of security. The chapter will illustrate the subjective investigation of supporting information to assess the relevance of Blockchain innovation in the present cybersecurity industry.

Chapter 4 is on “Attack Surfaces in Blockchain”. Attacks are believed to be caused by the blockchain cryptographic architecture, the bottom-line architecture, and the substance in which they are applied. Progressive defense research is believed to be the primary threat. Current research suggests that other attacks on the blockchain can be launched without being able to withstand traditional defenses, a few of which may be used to deliver other attacks. Delineating these attacks and examining their countermeasures reveal the direction of new research that should be pursued to foster safer and more competent use of blockchains.

Blockchain technology offers a data format that has built-in security. It is built on cryptography, decentralisation, and consensus concepts to ensure trust in transactions. Decentralization is enabled by blockchain technology, which allows members to participate in a distributed network. Since all transactions are transparent and visible to all users on the network, a single user cannot alter the transaction. However, blockchain differs significantly from other systems in terms of security. The blockchain is vulnerable to so many attacks nowadays. The purpose of Chapter 5, “Review of Anti Counterfeit Solutions in Block Chains”, is to examine the effective anti-counterfeit measures taken by blockchain technology or the patches for and related vulnerabilities offered by researchers to reduce the impact of these attacks.

Due to the increasing number of connections, the popularity of cloud services, and advances in the Internet of Things (IoT), a decentralized approach to trust is becoming more common. In the research community, blockchain technology is receiving considerable attention because it provides a distributed ledger. This technology, however, does not provide cybersecurity in its entirety. Thus, the objective of this chapter is to provide a comprehensive overview of the proposed methods and factors for achieving cybersecurity in blockchain-based systems.

The objective of the Sixth chapter, “Preserving the Privacy of Wearable IoT Device Data Using Blockchain,” is to provide the solution for the above-mentioned problems using Blockchain technology.

The cloud environment is a way to use faraway servers accommodated on the internet for data storage, data control, and information processing, more readily than a private computer or native server. There are still many challenges in the cloud environment, including authenticity, confidentiality, and integrity.

Chapter 7 discusses Blockchain-Based Access Control Systems. The need for secure and distributed access control architecture to overcome the single point of failure problem of a centralized entity becomes a big challenge when coupled with scalability and lightweight features. It is possible to achieve this through the use of Blockchain technology, which has recently been used to provide access control services. IoT device management would be used to manage distribution, heterogeneity, scalability, the ability to tolerate failure, security and privacy aspects of IoT devices at scale in the near future as it is useful.

“Multi-chain Deployment over Smart Contracts” is covered in Chapter 8. As the greatest enabling technology for blockchains, smart contracts are considered to be the best. As a result, blockchain ecosystems become self-governing, transparent, consent-based, and credible. Blockchains can operate without human intervention due to a compilation of smart contracts. These smart contracts are set up so they can be deployed at the predefined blockchain nodes. This can be done through the callbacks either from the blockchain system, the other smart contracts, or even the participants' information systems. As smart contracts, both the operations on the blockchain and the rules that govern the applications can usually be predetermined. While the use cases and real-world functions of this technology differ from one another, some principles remain the same: immutability, transparency, redundancy, and security.

The title of Chapter 9 is “Blockchain for Decentralized Services: On Improving Security and Performance of Distributed IPFS-based Web Applications”. Blockchain technology, with its associated decentralization, is used to develop decentralized application platforms. The Interplanetary File System (IPFS) is built on top of a distributed system consisting of a group of nodes that shares the data and takes advantage of blockchain to permanently store the data. The IPFS is very useful in transferring remote data. This work focuses on applying blockchain technology to the IPFS to improve its security and performance