Blockchain based approach to enhance big data authentication in distributed environment

Abstract

Existing authentication protocols for Big Data system such as Apache Hadoop is based on Kerberos. In the Kerberos protocol, there are numerous security issues that have remained unsolved; replay attacks, DDoS and single point of failure are some examples. These indicate potential security vulnerabilities and Big Data risks in using Hadoop. This paper presents drawbacks of Kerberos implementations and identifies authentication requirements that can enhance the security of Big Data in distributed environments. The enhancement proposed is based on the rising technology of blockchain that overcomes shortcomings of Kerberos.