{"status":"ok","message-type":"work","message-version":"1.0.0","message":{"indexed":{"date-parts":[[2026,2,14]],"date-time":"2026-02-14T09:45:24Z","timestamp":1771062324177,"version":"3.50.1"},"reference-count":47,"publisher":"MDPI AG","issue":"22","license":[{"start":{"date-parts":[[2021,11,18]],"date-time":"2021-11-18T00:00:00Z","timestamp":1637193600000},"content-version":"vor","delay-in-days":0,"URL":"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by\/4.0\/"}],"content-domain":{"domain":[],"crossmark-restriction":false},"short-container-title":["Sensors"],"abstract":"<jats:p>Logging system activities are required to provide credibility and confidence in the systems used by an organization. Logs in computer systems must be secured from the root user so that they are true and fair. This paper introduces RootLogChain, a blockchain-based audit mechanism that is built upon a security protocol to create both a root user in a blockchain network and the first log; from there, all root events are stored as logs within a standard blockchain mechanism. RootLogChain provides security constructs so as to be deployed in a distributed context over a hostile environment, such as the internet. We have developed a prototype based on a microservice architecture, validating it by executing different stress proofs in two scenarios: one with compliant agents and the other without. In such scenarios, several compliant and non-compliant agents try to become a root and register the events within the blockchain. Non-compliant agents simulate eavesdropper entities that do not follow the rules of the protocol. Our experiments show that the mechanism guarantees the creation of one and only one root user, integrity, and authenticity of the transactions; it also stores all events generated by the root within a blockchain. In addition, for audit issues, the traceability of the transaction logs can be consulted by the root.<\/jats:p>","DOI":"10.3390\/s21227669","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2021,11,19]],"date-time":"2021-11-19T02:43:09Z","timestamp":1637289789000},"page":"7669","update-policy":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.3390\/mdpi_crossmark_policy","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":6,"title":["RootLogChain: Registering Log-Events in a Blockchain for Audit Issues from the Creation of the Root"],"prefix":"10.3390","volume":"21","author":[{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0002-7844-3261","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Juan Carlos","family":"L\u00f3pez-Pimentel","sequence":"first","affiliation":[{"name":"Facultad de Ingenier\u00eda, Universidad Panamericana, \u00c1lvaro del Portillo 49, Zapopan 45010, Jalisco, Mexico"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0002-4753-9375","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Luis Alberto","family":"Morales-Rosales","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Facultad de Ingenier\u00eda Civil, CONACYT-Universidad Michoacana de San Nicol\u00e1s de Hidalgo, Morelia 58000, Michoac\u00e1n, Mexico"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0002-3465-995X","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Ra\u00fal","family":"Monroy","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"School of Engineering and Sciences, Tecnologico de Monterrey, Av. Lago de Guadalupe Km 3.5, Atizap\u00e1n de Zaragoza 52926, Edo. Mexico, Mexico"}]}],"member":"1968","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2021,11,18]]},"reference":[{"key":"ref_1","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Suzuki, S., and Murai, J. (2017, January 4\u20138). Blockchain as an Audit-Able Communication Channel. Proceedings of the 2017 IEEE 41st Annual Computer Software and Applications Conference (COMPSAC), Turin, Italy.","DOI":"10.1109\/COMPSAC.2017.72"},{"key":"ref_2","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Yavuz, A.A., and Ning, P. (2009, January 7\u201311). BAF: An Efficient Publicly Verifiable Secure Audit Logging Scheme for Distributed Systems. Proceedings of the 2009 Annual Computer Security Applications Conference, Honolulu, HI, USA.","DOI":"10.1109\/ACSAC.2009.28"},{"key":"ref_3","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Li, K.F., and Attarmoghaddam, N. (2018, January 16\u201318). Challenges and Methodologies of Hardware Security. Proceedings of the 2018 IEEE 32nd International Conference on Advanced Information Networking and Applications (AINA), Cracow, Poland.","DOI":"10.1109\/AINA.2018.00136"},{"key":"ref_4","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Barabanov, A., and Makrushin, D. (2021). Security audit logging in microservice-based systems: Survey of architecture patterns. arXiv.","DOI":"10.21681\/2311-3456-2021-2-71-80"},{"key":"ref_5","unstructured":"Li, X., Xi, Y., Zhu, H., Ling, J., and Zhang, Q. (October, January 28). Infrastructure Smart Service System Based on Microservice Architecture. Proceedings of the International Conference on Inforatmion Technology in Geo-Engineering, Guimaraes, Portugal."},{"key":"ref_6","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Michael, N., Mink, J., Liu, J., Gaur, S., Hassan, W.U., and Bates, A. (2020, January 7\u201311). On the forensic validity of approximated audit logs. Proceedings of the Annual Computer Security Applications Conference, Austin, TX, USA.","DOI":"10.1145\/3427228.3427272"},{"key":"ref_7","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"340","DOI":"10.3390\/jcp1020019","article-title":"Secure Remote Storage of Logs with Search Capabilities","volume":"1","author":"Pinto","year":"2021","journal-title":"J. Cybersecur. Priv."},{"key":"ref_8","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Zeng, J., Chua, Z.L., Chen, Y., Ji, K., Liang, Z., and Mao, J. (2021, January 21\u201325). WATSON: Abstracting Behaviors from Audit Logs via Aggregation of Contextual Semantics. Proceedings of the 28th Annual Network and Distributed System Security Symposium, NDSS 2021, Virtually, Available online: https:\/\/www.ndss-symposium.org\/ndss-paper\/watson-abstracting-behaviors-from-audit-logs-via-aggregation-of-contextual-semantics\/.","DOI":"10.14722\/ndss.2021.24549"},{"key":"ref_9","unstructured":"Odun-Ayo, I., Agono, F., and Misra, S. (2018, January 14\u201316). Cloud migration: Issues and developments. Proceedings of the International MultiConference of Engineers and Computer Scientists, Hong Kong, China. Available online: http:\/\/eprints.covenantuniversity.edu.ng\/id\/eprint\/10685."},{"key":"ref_10","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Zawoad, S., Dutta, A.K., and Hasan, R. (2013, January 8\u201310). SecLaaS: Secure logging-as-a-service for cloud forensics. Proceedings of the 8th ACM SIGSAC Symposium on Information, Computer and Communications Security, Hangzhou, China.","DOI":"10.1145\/2484313.2484342"},{"key":"ref_11","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Keromytis, A.D. (2012). Efficient, Compromise Resilient and Append-Only Cryptographic Schemes for Secure Audit Logging. Financial Cryptography and Data Security, Springer.","DOI":"10.1007\/978-3-642-32946-3"},{"key":"ref_12","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"323","DOI":"10.1109\/JSYST.2012.2221958","article-title":"Secure Logging as a Service\u2014Delegating Log Management to the Cloud","volume":"7","author":"Ray","year":"2013","journal-title":"IEEE Syst. J."},{"key":"ref_13","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"148","DOI":"10.1109\/TDSC.2015.2482484","article-title":"Towards Building Forensics Enabled Cloud Through Secure Logging-as-a-Service","volume":"13","author":"Zawoad","year":"2016","journal-title":"IEEE Trans. Dependable Secur. Comput."},{"key":"ref_14","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"3779","DOI":"10.1007\/s00500-018-3038-8","article-title":"Public audit for operation behavior logs with error locating in cloud storage","volume":"23","author":"Tian","year":"2019","journal-title":"Soft Comput."},{"key":"ref_15","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Chowdhury, M.J.M., Colman, A., Kabir, M.A., Han, J., and Sarda, P. (2018, January 1\u20133). Blockchain Versus Database: A Critical Analysis. Proceedings of the 2018 17th IEEE International Conference On Trust, Security And Privacy In Computing And Communications\/12th IEEE International Conference On Big Data Science And Engineering (TrustCom\/BigDataSE), New York, NY, USA.","DOI":"10.1109\/TrustCom\/BigDataSE.2018.00186"},{"key":"ref_16","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Ahmad, A., Saad, M., Bassiouni, M., and Mohaisen, A. (2018, January 5\u20137). Towards Blockchain-Driven, Secure and Transparent Audit Logs. Proceedings of the 15th EAI International Conference on Mobile and Ubiquitous Systems: Computing, Networking and Services, New York, NY, USA.","DOI":"10.1145\/3286978.3286985"},{"key":"ref_17","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"102406","DOI":"10.1016\/j.jnca.2019.102406","article-title":"Secure and transparent audit logs with BlockAudit","volume":"145","author":"Ahmad","year":"2019","journal-title":"J. Netw. Comput. Appl."},{"key":"ref_18","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"101602","DOI":"10.1016\/j.cose.2019.101602","article-title":"A secure and auditable logging infrastructure based on a permissioned blockchain","volume":"87","author":"Putz","year":"2019","journal-title":"Comput. Secur."},{"key":"ref_19","first-page":"1109","article-title":"Disrupting fraud: Auditing in the digital world\u2014A block chain perspective","volume":"82","author":"Mustafa","year":"2020","journal-title":"Test Eng. Manag."},{"key":"ref_20","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"101741","DOI":"10.1016\/j.cose.2020.101741","article-title":"A secure and scalable data integrity auditing scheme based on hyperledger fabric","volume":"92","author":"Lu","year":"2020","journal-title":"Comput. Secur."},{"key":"ref_21","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"85","DOI":"10.3233\/JCS-1998-61-205","article-title":"The inductive approach to verifying cryptographic protocols","volume":"6","author":"Paulson","year":"1998","journal-title":"J. Comput. Secur."},{"key":"ref_22","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"255","DOI":"10.1016\/j.cose.2014.05.010","article-title":"Design guidelines for security protocols to prevent replay & parallel session attacks","volume":"45","author":"Jurcut","year":"2014","journal-title":"Comput. Secur."},{"key":"ref_23","first-page":"89","article-title":"Formal support to security protocol development: A survey","volume":"12","author":"Monroy","year":"2008","journal-title":"Comput. Sist."},{"key":"ref_24","unstructured":"Xiong, Y., Su, C., and Huang, W. (2018). Verifying Security Protocols using Dynamic Strategies. arXiv."},{"key":"ref_25","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Klenze, T., Basin, D., and Sprenger, C. (2021, January 21\u201325). Formal Verification of Secure Forwarding Protocols. Proceedings of the 34th IEEE Computer Security Foundations Symposium (CSF 2021), Dubrovnik, Croatia.","DOI":"10.1109\/CSF51468.2021.00018"},{"key":"ref_26","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Matsuo, S. (2017, January 2\u20136). How formal analysis and verification add security to blockchain-based systems. Proceedings of the 2017 Formal Methods in Computer Aided Design (FMCAD), Vienna, Austria.","DOI":"10.23919\/FMCAD.2017.8102228"},{"key":"ref_27","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"101654","DOI":"10.1016\/j.cose.2019.101654","article-title":"Blockchain smart contracts formalization: Approaches and challenges to address vulnerabilities","volume":"88","author":"Singh","year":"2020","journal-title":"Comput. Secur."},{"key":"ref_28","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"8","DOI":"10.1109\/MCE.2019.2953758","article-title":"PUFchain: A Hardware-Assisted Blockchain for Sustainable Simultaneous Device and Data Security in the Internet of Everything (IoE)","volume":"9","author":"Mohanty","year":"2020","journal-title":"IEEE Consum. Electron. Mag."},{"key":"ref_29","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Birk, D., and Wegener, C. (2011, January 5\u20136). Technical Issues of Forensic Investigations in Cloud Computing Environments. Proceedings of the 2011 Sixth IEEE International Workshop on Systematic Approaches to Digital Forensic Engineering, Oakland, CA, USA.","DOI":"10.1109\/SADFE.2011.17"},{"key":"ref_30","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Siyal, A.A., Junejo, A.Z., Zawish, M., Ahmed, K., Khalil, A., and Soursou, G. (2019). Applications of blockchain technology in medicine and healthcare: Challenges and future perspectives. Cryptography, 3.","DOI":"10.3390\/cryptography3010003"},{"key":"ref_31","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Makridakis, S., and Christodoulou, K. (2019). Blockchain: Current challenges and future prospects\/applications. Future Internet, 11.","DOI":"10.3390\/fi11120258"},{"key":"ref_32","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"1","DOI":"10.7903\/ijecs.1931","article-title":"Recent development trend of blockchain technologies: A patent analysis","volume":"11","author":"Yang","year":"2020","journal-title":"Int. J. Electron. Commer. Stud."},{"key":"ref_33","unstructured":"Nakamoto, S. (2008). Bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System, Available online: https:\/\/bitcoin.org\/bitcoin.pdf."},{"key":"ref_34","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"11815","DOI":"10.1109\/JIOT.2020.3002711","article-title":"A Scalable Protocol for Driving Trust Management in Internet of Vehicles With Blockchain","volume":"7","author":"Javaid","year":"2020","journal-title":"IEEE Internet Things J."},{"key":"ref_35","unstructured":"L\u00f3pez-Pimentel, J.C., and Alcaraz Rivera, M. (2020, January 2\u20136). Secure Distributed Network Model to Store Vehicle Transaction Records Through Blockchain Platform. Proceedings of the 2020 IEEE International Conference on Blockchain (Blockchain), Rhodes, Greece."},{"key":"ref_36","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"1743","DOI":"10.1109\/TLA.2020.9387645","article-title":"Electronic Voting Using Blockchain And Smart Contracts: Proof Of Concept","volume":"18","author":"Giraldo","year":"2020","journal-title":"IEEE Lat. Am. Trans."},{"key":"ref_37","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"2964","DOI":"10.1109\/TII.2020.3007817","article-title":"A Blockchained Federated Learning Framework for Cognitive Computing in Industry 4.0 Networks","volume":"17","author":"Qu","year":"2021","journal-title":"IEEE Trans. Ind. Inform."},{"key":"ref_38","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"45","DOI":"10.2753\/MIS0742-1222240302","article-title":"A Design Science Research Methodology for Information Systems Research","volume":"24","author":"Peffers","year":"2007","journal-title":"J. Manag. Inf. Syst."},{"key":"ref_39","unstructured":"L\u00f3pez-Pimentel, J.C., Rojas, O., Alcaraz-Rivera, M., Sosa-G\u00f3mez, G., and Verteramo-Chiu, L. (2020, January 22\u201324). Automating the avocado supply chain with Blockchain and Off-chain. Proceedings of the 8th International Conference on Information Systems, Logistics and Supply Chain, ILS 2020, Austin, TX, USA."},{"key":"ref_40","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"L\u00f3pez-Pimentel, J.C., Rojas, O., and Monroy, R. (2020, January 2\u20136). Blockchain and off-chain: A Solution for Audit Issues in Supply Chain Systems. Proceedings of the 2020 IEEE International Conference Blockchain, Blockchain 2020, Rhodes, Greece.","DOI":"10.1109\/Blockchain50366.2020.00023"},{"key":"ref_41","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Biskup, J., and L\u00f3pez, J. (2007, January 24\u201326). On the Automated Correction of Security Protocols Susceptible to a Replay Attack. Proceedings of the Computer Security\u2013ESORICS 2007, Dresden, Germany.","DOI":"10.1007\/978-3-540-74835-9"},{"key":"ref_42","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Chen, R., Li, S., and Li, Z. (2017, January 4\u20138). From Monolith to Microservices: A Dataflow-Driven Approach. Proceedings of the 2017 24th Asia-Pacific Software Engineering Conference (APSEC), Nanjing, China.","DOI":"10.1109\/APSEC.2017.53"},{"key":"ref_43","unstructured":"Newman, S. (2015). Building Microservices: Designing Fine-Grained Systems, O\u2019Reilly Media, Inc."},{"key":"ref_44","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Jaramillo, D., Nguyen, D.V., and Smart, R. (April, January 30). Leveraging microservices architecture by using Docker technology. Proceedings of the SoutheastCon 2016, Norfolk, VA, USA.","DOI":"10.1109\/SECON.2016.7506647"},{"key":"ref_45","unstructured":"Mouat, A. (2015). Using Docker: Developing and Deploying Software with Containers, O\u2019Reilly Media, Inc."},{"key":"ref_46","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Stubbs, J., Moreira, W., and Dooley, R. (2015, January 3\u20135). Distributed Systems of Microservices Using Docker and Serfnode. Proceedings of the 2015 7th International Workshop on Science Gateways, Budapest, Hungary.","DOI":"10.1109\/IWSG.2015.16"},{"key":"ref_47","unstructured":"Gadge, S., and Kotwani, V. (2021, October 01). Microservice Architecture: API Gateway Considerations. GlobalLogic Organisations, Aug-2017. Available online: https:\/\/www.globallogic.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/08\/Microservice-Architecture-API-Gateway-Considerations.pdf."}],"container-title":["Sensors"],"original-title":[],"language":"en","link":[{"URL":"https:\/\/www.mdpi.com\/1424-8220\/21\/22\/7669\/pdf","content-type":"unspecified","content-version":"vor","intended-application":"similarity-checking"}],"deposited":{"date-parts":[[2025,10,11]],"date-time":"2025-10-11T07:32:16Z","timestamp":1760167936000},"score":1,"resource":{"primary":{"URL":"https:\/\/www.mdpi.com\/1424-8220\/21\/22\/7669"}},"subtitle":[],"short-title":[],"issued":{"date-parts":[[2021,11,18]]},"references-count":47,"journal-issue":{"issue":"22","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2021,11]]}},"alternative-id":["s21227669"],"URL":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.3390\/s21227669","relation":{},"ISSN":["1424-8220"],"issn-type":[{"value":"1424-8220","type":"electronic"}],"subject":[],"published":{"date-parts":[[2021,11,18]]}}}