Enhancing Railway Network Security and Privacy With Blockchain and Attribute-Based Encryption

Abstract

Railway systems are gradually adopting Internet of Things (IoT) and artificial intelligence (AI)-driven technologies to improve operational efficiency, implement preventive maintenance, and enable real-time monitoring. However, this technological shift has raised significant challenges for security, privacy, and data integrity. As cloud-based infrastructure is susceptible to unauthorized access, manipulation, and breach of confidentiality, there is an urgent demand for a secure and efficient data-sharing platform. Traditional architecture predominantly focuses on the aviation and automotive sectors, leaving the implementation of AI in railway networks relatively unexplored despite their essential role in urban and inter-city transportation infrastructure. This paper presents a blockchain-based system for secure data sharing in railway networks. This framework implements ciphertext-policy attribute-based encryption (CP-ABE) and an Intel SGX-based trusted execution environment to manage and prevent unauthorized data access. The proposed system implements smart contracts to facilitate secure data sharing and access control, thereby enhancing railway data security. Our experimental evaluation reveals that the proposed system improves efficiency, authentication speed, and cost-effectiveness. The results show a 27% reduction in computational cost, a 4% decrease in authentication time, an 8% improvement in peer-to-peer connection establishment, and a 23% decline in data sharing expenses. These improvements strike a balance between security, efficiency, and accessibility, thereby optimizing real-time railway operations.