ASCON-Based Mutual Authentication and Secure Surveillance Video Data Management in Smart Cities Using Blockchain

In the current era, the deployment of video surveillance systems $(VSSs)$ is becoming a common practice in society for properly maintaining laws and order in public and private places. The surveillance video data $(SD)$ generated from such infrastructure is sensitive and must address the concerns about its security. To ensure the security of SD, there is a need for a mechanism that provides authenticity, confidentiality, and integrity, all at the same time while being lightweight. ASCON delivers all these capabilities. This paper presents a novel approach to enhance the security of the smart city surveillance system using ASCON and Blockchain. Due to its immutable storage property, the Blockchain detects hardware attacks by validating the cameras and local servers. In this paper, SD is stored in the cloud server due to limited local server storage, which can become a primary target for attackers. Therefore, this paper stores the encrypted SD into the cloud server. Formal security analysis using the Scyther tool and the Random Oracle Model $(ROM)$ validates the system’s robustness. Additionally, this paper evaluates and contrasts the proposed scheme’s computational and transmission overheads with the other existing schemes. The results show that the proposed system significantly enhances the security of SD, offering a resilient solution for smart city surveillance infrastructures.