The Issue
Information is essential for operational decision making, but the huge amount of data available can cause an information security problem. When the decisions being made can result in loss of life it is crucial to know the full provenance of the data: where it came from, who accessed it, and what changes have been made.
Users of the data must protect it from tampering and be able to verify the authenticity to guarantee its trustworthiness. With current systems, modifications after collection can be difficult or impossible to detect and trace to their source.
Today, data gathering in defence and security is incorporating non-traditional systems including commercial drones. Creating and maintaining a chain of custody for these opportunistic sources is crucial to maintaining operational integrity.
What is C-CORE doing?
C-CORE has developed a demonstration product that combines the tamper-proof data ledgering of a private, permissioned blockchain with cryptographic, high integrity storage for complete data protection. The design ensures that all interactions with the system by authorized users are logged on the blockchain and no unencrypted data is ever written to disk.
This system called ADAPT (Advanced Detection and Prevention of Tampering) focuses on Full Motion Video (FMV) but is just as applicable to any other type of data. Auditing of the information on the blockchain allows full forensic tracing of changes and users. ADAPT is a distributed system that can still operate if multiple nodes are attacked or down, ensuring availability of data.
It has been demonstrated to the Canadian Armed Forces (CAF) with practical application to FMV from all sources, including small commercial drones. It is currently being futher developed for the Canadian Space Agency (CSA) to demonstrate applications to track and protect RADARSAT Constellation Mission data.
