TDRB: An Efficient Tamper-Proof Detection Middleware for Relational Database Based on Blockchain Technology

Abstract

The relational database has become one of the mainstream tools for data storage and management. However, there are two main types of threats to relational databases: external attacks and internal tampering threats. In this paper, we focus on the internal tampering threats and propose a tamper-proof detection middleware named TDRB to provide efficient tamper-proof detection for relational databases. Within the TDRB middleware framework, raw data is still stored and queried from the relational database, while the hash digest of the critical data in the relational database is synchronously migrated to the blockchain for tamper detection. Based on this method, we leverage blockchain's immutability to detect data tamper and maintain the advanced features of relational databases to better support ease of data persistence, complex queries, and large storage capacity. We also propose a performance improvement mechanism that involves connecting the blockchain and relational database to improve throughput and mitigate performance impact. A series of experiments indicate that the TDRB middleware can accurately detect the tampering information during arbitrary tampering with the relational database and the cache database. Compare with the baseline, with the increase of cache hit rate, the TDRB middleware query speed increased by 93.1%, update speed increased by 16.3%, delete speed increased by 16.1%, and join operation average speed increased by 95.2%. Given its generality, the TDRB middleware can be flexibly and conveniently integrated into third-party platforms.

Blockchain-Enabled Cybersecurity Provision for Scalable Heterogeneous Network: A Comprehensive Survey

“…The exploration of relational or non-relational database models makes important contributions to storing data and their different features in the blockchain network with strong security. A relational database is a mainstream tool that is used for data storage and management in business transactions [315]. The relational database is designed by Oracle Spatial, Microsoft SQL Server, or MySQL for distributed data management, resource management, or industrial process system.…”

A Survey on the Integration of Blockchains and Databases

“…To achieve such a goal while keeping a basic security guarantee, blockchain-oriented databases are built upon an existing database instance, while learning lessons of hash chain from blockchains. That is, they usually contain a blockchain layer [ 50 ] or a middleware [ 48 , 49 ] with blockchain features, and the chain-like relationships are either revealed by the internal fields or stored in a specific table. We regard such systems as general blockchain-oriented databases and introduce the technical details in Sect.…”

“…Since then, more and more researchers develop various blockchain middleware to enable databases with security guarantees in different aspects. Lian et al leverage the immutability of blockchain ledgers to develop a tamper-proof detection middleware for relational databases, named TRDB [ 48 ]. In TRDB, the original data are stored and processed in the relational databases, while the hash digest of each entry is replicated among the blockchain for tamper detection.…”

Secured Multi-Layer Blockchain Framework for IoT Aggregate Verification

“…All data in the blockchain is immutable because the order of transactions is stored in chronological blocks and broadcast to all nodes [24]. The stored data is tamper-proof because updating and deleting of transactions is determined by the consensus mechanism [25,26].…”