Task Integrity Checker: A Block Chain - Enabled Trust Management System for Fog Nodes

Fog computing, a transformative computational paradigm, has ushered in new opportunities but also introduced significant security challenges. This paper presents a vital trust-based framework called Task Integrity Checker in Fog Computing Systems (TICS) to address these challenges, mainly focusing on mitigating On-Off attacks in the fog computing environment. An On-Off attack is a threat where attackers strategically alternate between malicious and benign behaviors, exploiting temporary errors to evade conventional detection methods. Detecting and thwarting such attacks is imperative for safeguarding the integrity and reliability of fog systems. Our proposed approach tackles this challenge by continuously monitoring and updating trust values for fog nodes based on task results and past performance. These trust values are securely stored in a blockchain, ensuring immutability and enhancing TICS’s overall security. Utilizing blockchain technology bolsters the effectiveness of our solution, as it provides a tamper-resistant foundation for trust computation and attack mitigation. We rigorously evaluate the performance of our solution through comprehensive simulation experiments, assessing its effectiveness under various scenarios, including fluctuations in the number of fog nodes and varying attack intensities. The results affirm the efficacy of our approach in detecting and mitigating OnOff attacks, ultimately strengthening the security posture of fog computing systems. This solution is practical and adaptable to diverse fog computing scenarios, making it a valuable addition to security measures in this dynamic and evolving domain.