Heir cloud: A Secure Cloud-Based Posthumous Digital Asset Management System Using Aes-Cbc, Fernet Encryption, And Heir Access Code-Based Encryption (Hace)

DOI

https://www.doi.org/10.59256/ijire.20260702046

Published In

Volume 7, Issue 2 (2026)

Published Online

March-April 2026

Pages

400-406

Article Type

Original Article

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With the exponential growth of digital services, individuals accumulate significant digital assets including finan- cial credentials, personal identification documents, audio-video messages, and email accounts. Upon a person’s death, these assets frequently become inaccessible or misused due to the absence of a secure, automated management and delivery system. This paper presents HeirCloud, a cloud-based posthumous digital asset management system that enables users to store assets in en- crypted form and automatically transfer them to designated heirs upon verified death confirmation. HeirCloud employs a multi- layer encryption architecture comprising: (1) AES-256-CBC field- level encryption for all database records using the username as the symmetric key; (2) Fernet symmetric encryption with PBKDF2-HMAC-SHA256 key derivation for uploaded files; and (3) a novel Heir Access Code-Based Encryption (HACE) scheme for heir-specific data distribution. The system also implements an inactivity-based death detection algorithm with tiered alert escalation at 15, 30, and 45 days, a government death certificate verification pipeline, and a two-factor heir authentication mech- anism. Experimental results demonstrate successful encrypted storage, death detection, and authorized asset retrieval across all asset categories.