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HARE: A new Hash-based Authenticated Reliable and Efficient Modified Merkle Tree Data Structure to Ensure Integrity of Data in the Healthcare Systems

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A Correction to this article was published on 31 May 2021

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Abstract

In the digital world, systems are usually distributed, where health data are fragmented across multiple healthcare providers’ data may be accidentally corrupted or intentionally tampered. A mechanism is important to verify the integrity of the content in the network to ensure the security. The main objective of this paper is to propose a Modified Merkle Tree (MMT) data structure for data storage and data authentication. In this paper, a new Modified Merkle Tree data structure that can ensure storage security with integrity management is proposed. The Merkle Tree data structure, utilized in Blockchain technology is modified in this work for the purpose of designing a new three-stage Modified Merkle Tree based on hashed transactions. The objective of the proposed hashed transaction is to verify the authenticity and integrity of the content. The use of the Modified Merkle Tree data structure is highlighted in designing a system that takes care of Data Authentication, Consistency Verification and Data Synchronization. The effectiveness of the proposed system has been experimented in the healthcare scenario and proved to store and verify the content integrity. The quantitative metrics of the proposed system have been evaluated and compared with the binary Merkle Tree data structure.

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Correspondence to Usharani Chelladurai.

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The original online version of this article was revised: “The accepted date has been corrected in original version”.

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Chelladurai, U., Pandian, S. HARE: A new Hash-based Authenticated Reliable and Efficient Modified Merkle Tree Data Structure to Ensure Integrity of Data in the Healthcare Systems. J Ambient Intell Human Comput (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12652-021-03085-0

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12652-021-03085-0

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