VERIFIABLE AND SECURE DATA DEDUPLICATION WITH REAL - TIME DATA INTEGRITY CHECKING IN CLOUD (VERDUP)

Abstract

The rapid growth of Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) environments has led to an unprecedented increase in cloud-stored data, making secure storage optimization and continuous integrity verification essential. Conventional blockchain-assisted deduplication mechanisms often rely on passive ledgers and edge-level security, leaving them vulnerable to unauthorized access, data leakage, and delayed integrity validation. The proposed VERDUP framework is designed for IIoT data generated from distributed devices and fog nodes, where continuously evolving sensor information is securely processed before cloud storage. The processing pipeline includes user and device authentication, SHA-256 hash generation, encryption, duplicate detection, blockchain validation, smart-contract execution, and real-time integrity checking. The framework integrates cloud storage, fog computing, blockchain, a Key Distribution Center, and cryptographic techniques to ensure authenticated storage and secure data access. Performance is assessed using deduplication efficiency, storage savings, integrity verification speed, latency, throughput, scalability, and robustness against data manipulation. Experimental evaluation demonstrates superior storage optimization, faster integrity verification, lower communication overhead, enhanced scalability, and stronger resistance to spoofing and tampering than conventional blockchain-based deduplication approaches. By combining blockchain, cryptographic validation, and real-time integrity auditing into a unified architecture, VERDUP delivers a secure, transparent, and efficient cloud data management framework for modern IIoT environments.