Secure and verifiable update operations

A method comprises:

• receiving, by a set of storage units of a dispersed storage network (DSN), a set of data access requests regarding data, wherein the data is dispersed storage error encoded to produce a set of encoded data slices;
• determining, by at least some of the storage units, whether at least some of the data access requests are verifiable update requests;
• and
• when the at least some of the data access requests are the verifiable update requests:
• determining, by the at least some of the storage units, whether the at least some of the data access requests are addressing data stored, or to be stored, within a verifiable update region affiliated with the at least some of the storage units;
• and
• when the at least some of the data access requests are addressing data stored, or to be stored, within the verifiable update region:
• generating, by each of the at least some of the storage units, request verification information based on a corresponding one of the at least some of the data access requests;
• transmitting, by the each of the at least some of the storage units, the request verification information to other storage units of the at least some of the storage units;
• and
• executing, by the at least some of the storage units, the at least some of the data access requests when the at least some of the storage units determine a desired level of consistency of the request verification information.