Efficient integrity verification of replicated data in cloud computing system

•The data owner uses the FHE algorithm to generate multiple data replicas.•The scheme supports data block dynamic operation.•The cloud server cannot cheat the data owner.•The scheme supports the third party public validation.•The authorized users can access the copies from the CSPs using a single secret key. Data owners can outsource their data to remote Cloud Servers (CSs) and enjoy on-demand high quality services. They rent Cloud Service Provider (CSP) facilities to store unlimited data by paying fees metered by month or gigabyte. For important sensitive data, data owners have increased availability, scalability and durability requirements. If the sensitive data hold these properties and can be stored correctly, the data owners will get great benefits. Thus, the data owners care about the confidentiality aspects as well. Therefore, they may store data replicas on multiple servers across multiple data centers. Data owners should have assurances that the stored copies are consistent with the most recent version updated by the data owner. This research proposed an efficient multi-copy Provable Data Possession (PDP) scheme that holds five characteristics: 1) the data owner uses the Fully Homomorphic Encryption (FHE) to generate data block replicas; 2) the scheme allows the data owner to perform dynamic update operations on the stored data blocks; 3) CSP cannot cheat the data owner; 4) the scheme supports the third party public verification; 5) authorized users can seamlessly access data copies from CSPs using a single secret key. The security analysis and experimental results demonstrate the proposed scheme could resist forge attack, replay attack and replace attack, and perform better than previous effors.