Privacy-Preserving Data Integrity Verification for Secure Mobile Edge Storage

Mobile edge computing (MEC) is proposed as an extension of cloud computing in the scenarios where the end devices desire better services in terms of response time. Because the edges are usually owned by individuals or small organizations with limited operation capabilities, the data on the edges are easily corrupted (due to external attacks or internal hardware failures). Therefore, it is essential to verify data integrity i the MEC. We propose two Integrity Checking protocols for the mobile Edge storage, called ICE-basic and ICE-batch. Our protocols allow a third-party verifier to check the data integrity on the edges without violating users' data privacy and query pattern privacy. We rigorously prove the security and privacy guarantees of the protocols. In addition, we have investigated how to let the end devices cache some verification tags such that the communication cost between end devices and the cloud can be further reduced when a user connects to multiple edges in sequence. We have implemented a proof-of-concept system that runs ICE, and extensive experiments are conducted to evaluate the performance of the proposed protocols. The theoretical analysis and experimental results demonstrate the proposed protocols are efficient both in computation and communication.

Automated summary

Mobile edge computing (MEC) is proposed as an extension of cloud computing to provide better services in terms of response time for end devices. We propose two integrity checking protocols (ICE-basic and ICE-batch) for mobile edge storage, allowing third-party verification while preserving data privacy. The protocols are proven to be secure and privacy-preserving, and caching verification tags on end devices reduces communication costs. Extensive experiments demonstrate the efficiency of the proposed protocols.