Blockchain Papers

Pouriya Alikhani, Nicolas Brunner, Claude Crépeau, Sébastien Designolle · 8 authors

Protecting secrets is a key challenge in our contemporary information-based era. In common situations, however, revealing secrets appears unavoidable, for instance, when identifying oneself in a bank to retrieve money. In turn, this may have highly undesirable consequences in the unlikely, yet not unrealistic, case where the bank's security gets compromised. This naturally raises the question of whether disclosing secrets is fundamentally necessary for identifying oneself, or more generally for proving a statement to be correct. Developments in computer science provide an elegant solution via the concept of zero-knowledge proofs: a prover can convince a verifier of the validity of a certain statement without facilitating the elaboration of a proof at all. In this work, we report the experimental realisation of such a zero-knowledge protocol involving two separated verifier-prover pairs. Security is enforced via the physical principle of special relativity, and no computational assumption (such as the existence of one-way functions) is required. Our implementation exclusively relies on off-the-shelf equipment and works at both short (60 m) and long distances ($\geqslant$400 m) in about one second. This demonstrates the practical potential of multi-prover zero-knowledge protocols, promising for identification tasks and blockchain applications such as cryptocurrencies or smart contracts.

Shahid Latif, Zeba Idrees, Jawad Ahmad, Li‐Rong Zheng · 5 authors

No abstract is available for this record.

Ranveer Potel

Counterfeiting and fraudulent product diversion pose escalating threats to brand integrity, consumer safety, and global supply-chain stability. Traditional security measures—including holograms, barcodes, and conventional QR codes—are insufficient to guarantee authenticity or prevent digital tampering in adversarial environments increasingly augmented by quantum computing capabilities. This paper proposes a novel AI-enabled, post-quantum cryptography (PQC) framework for anti-counterfeiting and product authentication, integrating clone-proof digital identifiers, real-time traceability via distributed ledger technology, and rich consumer engagement channels. The architecture ensures end-to-end supply-chain transparency, protects digital assets against both classical and quantum adversaries, and enables secure post-purchase interactions at scale. Experimental deployment across food-and-beverage and healthcare supplement sectors demonstrates a 38-percentage-point improvement in counterfeit detection rate, a 37-point increase in supply-chain visibility, and a 97% reduction in anomaly-detection latency, establishing the framework as a robust and scalable model for securing physical and digital product lifecycles.

Ore Ndiaye Diedhiou, Chérif Diallo

Security is one of the major challenges of the Internet of Things (IoT). In an IoT network, data are processed and exchanged without human intervention. Because of this autonomy, objects must authenticate each other as well as to ensure the integrity of the exchanged data. An efficient authentication scheme allows to protect the network against several attacks. Several IoT authentication schemes have already been proposed but they are mostly ineffective and sometimes have limitations. This work proposes a new mutual authentication scheme for IoT based on digital signatures, the Physical Unclonable Functions (PUF) and the blockchain technology. The Global Assessment and analyses show that our new protocol gives more resistance to different types of attacks, and that it also provides a better performance in terms of computing load although it requires fewer storage resources.

Lei Xu, Lin Chen, Zhimin Gao, Hanyee Kim · 6 authors

Industrial IoT (IIoT) is critical for industrial infrastructure modernization and digitalization. Therefore, it is of utmost importance to provide adequate protection of the IIoT system. A modern IIoT system usually consists of a large number of devices that are deployed in multiple locations and owned/managed by different entities who do not fully trust each other. These features make it harder to manage the system in a coherent manner and utilize existing security mechanisms to offer adequate protection. The emerging blockchain technology provides a powerful tool for IIoT system management and protection because the IIoT nature of distributed deployment and involvement of multiple stakeholders fits the design philosophy of blockchain well. Most existing blockchain construction mechanisms are not scalable enough and too heavy for an IIoT system. One promising way to overcome these limitations is utilizing hardware based trusted execution environment (TEE) in blockchain construction. However, most of the existing works on this direction do not consider the characteristics of IIoT devices (e.g., fixed functionality and limited supply) and face several limitations when they are applied for IIoT system management and protection, such as high energy consumption, single root-of-trust, and low decentralization level. To mitigate these challenges, we propose a novel field programmable gate array (FPGA) based blockchain system. It leverages the FPGA to build a simple but efficient TEE for IIoT devices, and removes the single root-of-trust by allowing all stakeholders to participate in the management of the devices. The FPGA based blockchain system shifts the computation/storage intensive part of blockchain management to more powerful computers but still involves the IIoT devices in the block construction to achieve a high level of decentralization. We implement the major FPGA components of the design and evaluate the performance of the whole system with a simulation tool to demonstrate its feasibility for IIoT applications.

Sina Rafati Niya, Benjamin Jeffrey, Burkhard Stiller

The integration of Internet-of-Things (IoT) and Blockchains (BC) for trusted and decentralized approaches enabled modern use cases, such as supply chain tracing, smart cities, and IoT data marketplaces. For these it is essential to identify reliably IoT devices, since the producer-consumer trust is not guaranteed by a Trusted Third Party (TTP). Therefore, this work proposes a Know Your IoT device platform (KYoT), which enables the self-sovereign identification of IoT devices on the Ethereum BC. KYoT permits manufacturers and device owners to register and verify IoT devices in a self-sovereign fashion, while data storage security is ensured. KYoT deploys an SRAM-based (Static Random Access Memory) Physically Unclonable Function (PUF), which takes advantage of the manufacturing variability of devices' SRAM chips to derive a unique identifying key for each IoT device. The self-sovereign identification mechanism introduced is based on the ERC 734 and ERC 735 Ethereum identity standards.

Zhangyue Shi, Chen Kan, Wenmeng Tian, Chenang Liu

Abstract As an emerging technology, additive manufacturing (AM) is able to fabricate products with complex geometries using various materials. In particular, cyber-enabled AM systems have recently become widely applied in many real-world applications. It significantly improves the flexibility and productivity of AM but poses the system under high risks of cyber-physical attacks. For example, cyber-physical attack could maliciously tamper the product design and process parameters, which, in turn, leads to significant alteration of the desired properties in AM products. Therefore, there is an urgent need in incorporating advanced technologies to improve the cyber-physical security for the cyber-enabled AM systems. In this study, two common types of cyber-physical attacks regarding the G-code security were investigated, namely, unintended design modifications and intellectual property theft. To effectively secure the G-code against these two attacks, a new methodology is developed in this study, which consists of a novel blockchain-based data storage approach and an effective asymmetry encryption technique. The proposed method was also applied to a real-world AM case for ensuring the cyber-physical security of the face shield fabrication, which is critical during the COVID-19 pandemic. Based on the proposed methodology, malicious tampering can be accurately detected in time, and meanwhile, the risk of unauthorized access of the G-code file is greatly eliminated as well.

Uzair Javaid, Muhammad Naveed Aman, Biplab Sikdar

The constantly growing number of Internet of Things (IoT) devices and their resource-constrained nature makes them particularly vulnerable and increasingly attractive for exploitation by cyber criminals. Current estimates commonly reach the tens of billions for the number of connected 'things'. The heterogeneous capabilities of these devices serve as a motivation for resource sharing among them. However, for effective resource sharing, it is essential that trust be retained in the multitude of pervasive and diverse IoT devices. Remote attestation is a well-known technique used to build such trust. Thus, this paper proposes a blockchain based remote attestation protocol to establish trust between IoT devices. The blockchain offers a secure framework for device registration while the attestation is based on Physical Unclonable Functions (PUF). This combination of technologies results in a tamper resistant scheme with protection against physical and proxy attacks.

Jun Guo, Hongbo Zhou, Lan Yang, Xuhui Chen

As a decentralized network structure based on P2P network and with cryptography as its core, blockchain technology establishes trust relationship on the network by pure mathematical method without relying on intermediate platform. There are three problems in traditional digital copyright industry: difficult to confirm the rights, difficult to authorize rights and difficult to maintain rights. This paper makes a deep research on the blockchain technology of digital copyright. With the help of self-supervision, traceability and decentralization of blockchain technology, as well as the Map function, we can improve the data transmission rate in the multi-channel model and obtain accurate time complexity values. Hence the probability of all kinds of digital copyright infringement events is greatly reduced.

Meikang Qiu, Xinxin Liu, Yiren Qi, Hui Zhao · 5 authors

The emergence of blockchain has attracted many researchers from various fields to use its distinctive features to solve different problems. One of the issues that can be mitigated is network security. Blockchain is a decentralized ledger without the control of a central authority. It tracks all transactions and registers them on the digital block. These blocks are immutable, immutable and distributed. This paper introduces the challenges facing network security and the opportunities for network security using blockchain.

Andrea Ceccarelli, Marcello Cinque, Christian Esposito, Luca Foschini · 6 authors

The industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) is currently foreseen as a foundation to implement the Industry 4.0 vision. However, device heterogeneity and the need of integration and configuration exposes the industrial infrastructure to potential threats, such as black-hole, man-in-the-middle, and malicious configuration attacks. In this article, we investigate how to manage distributed trust information and to enable trusted configuration actions in the IIoT, by opportunistically intermingling blockchain with the software defined networking and container orchestration technologies. In particular, we focus on how the joint and coordinated adoption of such technologies can make technicians’ interventions on industrial equipment both easier and more trusted. To this purpose, we present the design of a software architecture to simplify the management, configuration, and assessment of IIoT systems, and we discuss our experiences with the application of the proposed architecture in a railways use case.

Jason Vosatka, Andrew Stern, Muhammad Monir Hossain, Fahim Rahman · 8 authors

The modern electronics supply chain is a globalized marketplace with the increasing threat of counterfeit integrated circuits (ICs) being installed into mission critical systems. A number of methods for detecting counterfeit ICs exist; however, effective test and evaluation (T&E) methods to assess the confidence of detecting recycled ICs are needed. Additionally, methods for the trustworthy tracking of recycled ICs in the supply chain are also needed. In this work, we propose a novel methodology to address the detection and tracking of recycled ICs at each stage of the electronics supply chain. We present a case study demonstrating our assessment model to calculate the confidence levels of authentic and recycled ICs, and to confidently track these types of ICs throughout the electronics supply chain.

Akash Suresh Patil, Rafik Hamza, Alzubair Hassan, Nan Jiang · 6 authors

No abstract is available for this record.

Dimitris Mouris, Nektarios Georgios Tsoutsos

The contemporary IC supply chain depends heavily on third-party intellectual property (3PIP) that is integrated to in-house designs. As the correctness of such 3PIPs should be verified before integration, one important challenge for 3PIP vendors is proving the functionality of their designs while protecting the privacy of circuit implementations. In this work, we present Pythia that employs zero-knowledge proofs to enable vendors convince integrators about the functionality of a circuit without disclosing its netlist. Pythia automatically encodes netlists into zero knowledge-friendly format, evaluates them on different inputs, and proves correctness of outputs. We evaluate Pythia using the ISCAS'85 benchmark suite.

Leonardo Aniello, Basel Halak, Peter Chai, Riddhi Dhall · 6 authors

Abstract The complexity of today’s integrated circuit (IC) supply chain, organised in several tiers and including many companies located in different countries, makes it challenging to assess the history and integrity of procured ICs. This enables malicious practices like counterfeiting and insertion of back doors, which are extremely dangerous, especially in supply chains of ICs for industrial control systems used in critical infrastructures, where a country and human lives can be put at risk. This paper aims at mitigating these issues by introducing Anti-BlUFf (Anti-counterfeiting Blockchain- and PUF-based infrastructure), an approach where ICs are uniquely identified and tracked along the chain, across multiple sites, to detect tampering. Our solution is based on consortium blockchain and smart contract technologies; hence, it is decentralised, highly available and provides strong guarantees on the integrity of stored data and executed business logic. The unique identification of ICs along the chain is implemented by using physically unclonable functions (PUFs) as tamper-resistant IDs. We first define the threat model of an adversary interested in tampering with ICs along the supply chain and then provide the design of the tracking system that implements the proposed anti-counterfeiting approach. We present a security analysis of the tracking system against the designated threat model and a prototype evaluation to show its technical feasibility and assess its effectiveness in counterfeit mitigation. Finally, we discuss several key practical aspects concerning our solution ad its integration with real IC supply chains.

Bertrand Cambou, Michael Gowanlock, Julie Heynssens, Saloni Jain · 10 authors

Blockchain technology is a game-changing, enhancing security for the supply chain of smart additive manufacturing. Blockchain enables the tracking and recording of the history of each transaction in a ledger stored in the cloud that cannot be altered, and when blockchain is combined with digital signatures, it verifies the identity of the participants with its non-repudiation capabilities. One of the weaknesses of blockchain is the difficulty of preventing malicious participants from gaining access to public–private key pairs. Groups of opponents often interact freely with the network, and this is a security concern when cloud-based methods manage the key pairs. Therefore, we are proposing end-to-end security schemes by both inserting tamper-resistant devices in the hardware of the peripheral devices and using ternary cryptography. The tamper-resistant devices, which are designed with nanomaterials, act as Physical Unclonable Functions to generate secret cryptographic keys. One-time use public–private key pairs are generated for each transaction. In addition, the cryptographic scheme incorporates a third logic state to mitigate man-in-the-middle attacks. The generation of these public–private key pairs is compatible with post quantum cryptography. The third scheme we are proposing is the use of noise injection techniques used with high-performance computing to increase the security of the system. We present prototypes to demonstrate the feasibility of these schemes and to quantify the relevant parameters. We conclude by presenting the value of blockchains to secure the logistics of additive manufacturing operations.

Hyunjun Jung, Heung-No Lee

Bitcoin is the first cryptocurrency to participate in a network and receive compensation for online remittance and mining without any intervention from a third party, such as financial institutions. Bitcoin mining is done through proof of work (PoW). Given its characteristics, the higher hash rate results in a higher probability of mining, leading to the emergence of a mining pool, called a mining organization. Unlike central processing units or graphics processing units, high-cost application-specific integrated circuit miners have emerged with performance efficiency. The problem is that the obtained hash rate exposes Bitcoin’s mining monopoly and causes the risk of a double-payment attack. To solve this problem, we propose the error-correction code PoW (ECCPoW), combining the low-density parity-check decoder and hash function. The ECCPoW contributes to the phenomenon of symmetry in the proof of work (PoW) blockchain. This paper proposes the implementation of ECCPoW, replacing the PoW in Bitcoin. Finally, we compare the mining centralization, security, and scalability of ECCPoW and Bitcoin.

Gleidson Sobreira Leite, Adriano Bessa Albuquerque, Plácido Rogério Pinheiro

In the context of combating crime, government institutions in several countries have instituted units specialized in investigation and intelligence activities to act in different areas and expertise. However, due to the considerable complexity and specificity of these activities, as well as a significant concern with security and other related aspects, there are challenges regarding the location and adoption of approaches aimed at applying process automation in the context of these units. Motivated by this scenario, this work presents an approach that adopts concepts of process automation in order to assist researchers and professionals interested in studies and practices aimed at simplification and/or automation of processes in the context of intelligence and investigation units. Exploring the main characteristics of blockchain technology, this paper also presents an overview of different application trends of blockchain technology and proposes the use of this technology as a support mechanism in the management, storage, and sharing of generated digital assets. On the other hand, to analyze the feasibility of applying the approach, a survey was carried out with specialists from specialized units and a real case scenario experience of use was performed. Results show evidence of the feasibility of use and suitability of the approach for the given context, and that it helps interested parties regarding the application of process automation in the scenario of intelligence and investigation units.

Cristian Lupaşcu, Alexandru Lupascu, Ion Bica

The latest technological progress in the industrial sector has led to a paradigm shift in manufacturing efficiency and operational cost reduction. More often than not, this cost reduction comes at the price of dismissing information security, especially when multiple stakeholders are involved and the complexity increases. As a further matter, most of the legacy systems and smart factoring processes lack a security by design approach, making them highly vulnerable to cyber-attacks. Taking into consideration the aforementioned issues, we propose an architectural framework for Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) that provides authentication and guaranteed integrity. Our proposal properly addresses the security by design principle while combining some of the emerging technologies like Secure Multi-Party Computation (SMPC) for grounded policy rules and Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT) for an immutable and transparent registry.

Laura De Santis, Vincenzo Paciello, Antonio Pietrosanto

Nowadays, with the further development of telecommunication, IoT technology has become a concrete reality of everyday life. However, the widespread adoption of such technologies is sharply limited by Trust concerns for IoT devices, in terms of reliability, traceability, integrity, and privacy of the data. The lack of digital traceability increases the market time for IoT environment adoption. Contemporary Blockchain has been identified as one of the most promising technology to grant data security and reliability. The recent developments of such technologies have led to the possibility to build a shared, distributed, trustful, and autonomous infrastructure system making it hopeful for IoT systems. The constrained resources of low-level devices used in the IoT networks represent a significant hindrance to the integration of Blockchain and IoT technologies. Different kind of light protocols for IoT communication and secure authentication has been proposed to this end; some of this requires the slightest effort for resources integration. In this paper, an audit system for metrological traceability in a distributed measurement system is proposed. The system is based on Blockchain technology and Physical Unclonable Functions (PUF) access security protocol.

Yu Ou, Lang Li

The cryptographic algorithm has been gradually improved in design, but its implementations are vulnerable to side‐channel analysis (SCA). Generally speaking, adding a mask to the primitive is the best way to counteract SCA. In the high‐order mask, the key to affecting performance and security lies in the multiplication design. Based on the research of the advanced encryption standard (AES) algorithm, internal round function structure, and zero‐knowledge proof, a high‐order AES mask scheme is designed to optimise the implementation. In this scheme, the substitution‐box protects sensitive variables in the algorithm with the use of secure multiplication and secure inversion by column. The scheme named as in columns higher‐order mask (ICHM), features low cost and high security. The result of the experiment proves the security and effectiveness of the ICHM.

Andreas Penzkofer, Bartosz Kuśmierz, Angelo Capossele, William H. Sanders · 5 authors

In recent years several distributed ledger technologies based on directed acyclic graphs (DAGs) have appeared on the market. Similar to blockchain technologies, DAG-based systems aim to build an immutable ledger and are faced with security concerns regarding the irreversibility of the ledger state. However, due to their more complex nature and recent popularity, the study of adversarial actions has received little attention so far. In this paper we are concerned with a particular type of attack on the IOTA cryptocurrency, more specifically a Parasite Chain attack that attempts to revert the history stored in the DAG structure, also called the Tangle.
\nIn order to improve the security of the Tangle, we present a detection mechanism for this type of attack. In this mechanism, we embrace the complexity of the DAG structure by sampling certain aspects of it, more particularly the distribution of the number of approvers. We initially describe models that predict the distribution that should be expected for a Tangle without any malicious actors. We then introduce metrics that compare this reference distribution with the measured distribution. Upon detection, measures can then be taken to render the attack unsuccessful. We show that due to a form of the Parasite Chain that is different from the main Tangle it is possible to detect certain types of malicious chains. We also show that although the attacker may change the structure of the Parasite Chain to avoid detection, this is done so at a significant cost since the attack is rendered less efficient.

Krishnendu Guha, Debasri Saha, Amlan Chakrabarti

The present era is witnessing a reuse of hardware IPs to reduce cost. As trustworthiness is an essential factor, designers prefer to use hardware IPs which performed effectively in the past, but at the same time, are still active and did not age. In such scenarios, pay per use licensing schemes suit best for both producers and users. Existing pay per use licensing mechanisms consider a centralized third party, which may not be trustworthy. Hence, we seek refuge to blockchain technology to eradicate such third parties and facilitate a transparent and automated pay per use licensing mechanism. A blockchain is a distributed public ledger whose records are added based on peer review and majority consensus of its participants, that cannot be tampered or modified later. Smart contracts are deployed to facilitate the mechanism. Even dynamic pricing of the hardware IPs based on the factors of trustworthiness and aging have been focused in this work, which are not associated in existing literature. Security analysis of the proposed mechanism has been provided. Performance evaluation is carried based on the gas usage of Ethereum Solidity test environment, along with cost analysis based on lifetime and related user ratings.

Prada Delgado, Miguel Ángel

Among all the different research lines related to hardware security, there is a particular topic that strikingly attracts attention. That topic is the research regarding the so-called Physical Unclonable Functions (PUF). The PUFs, as can be seen throughout the Thesis, present the novel idea of connecting digital values uniquely to a physical entity, just as human biometrics does, but with electronic devices. This beautiful idea is not free of obstacles, and is the core of this Thesis. It is studied from different angles in order to better understand, in particular, SRAM PUFs, and to be able to integrate them into complex systems that expand their potential. During Chapter 1, the PUFs, their properties and their main characteristics are defined. In addition, the different types of PUFs, and their main applications in the field of security are also summarized. Once we know what a PUF is, and the types of them we can find, throughout Chapter 2 an exhaustive analysis of the SRAM PUFs is carried out, given the wide availability of SRAMs today in most electronic circuits (which dramatically reduces the cost of deploying any solution). An algorithm is proposed to improve the characteristics of SRAM PUFs, both to generate identifiers and to generate random numbers, simultaneously. The results of this Chapter demonstrates the feasibility of implementing the algorithm, so in the following Chapters it is explored its integration in both hardware and software systems. In Chapter 3 the hardware design and integration of the algorithm introduced in Chapter 2 is described. The design is presented together with some examples of use that demonstrate the possible practical realizations in VLSI designs. In an analogous way, in Chapter 4 the software design and integration of the algorithm introduced in Chapter 2 is described. The design is presented together with some examples of use that demonstrate the possible practical realizations in low-power IoT devices. The algorithm is also described as part of a secure firmware update protocol that has been designed to be resistant to most current attacks, ensuring the integrity and trustworthiness of the updated firmware.In Chapter 5, following the integration of PUF-based solutions into protocols, PUFs are used as part of an authentication protocol that uses zero-knowledge proofs. The cryptographic protocol is a Lattice-based post-quantum protocol that guarantees the integrity and anonymity of the identity generated by the PUF. This type of architecture prevents any type of impersonation or virtual copy of the PUF, since this is unknown and never leaves the device. Specifically, this type of design has been carried out with the aim of having traceability of identities without ever knowing the identity behind, which is very interesting for blockchain technologies. Finally, in Chapter 6 a new type of PUF, named as BPUF (Behavioral and Physical Unclonable Function), is proposed and analyzed according to the definitions given in Chapter 1. This new type of PUF significantly changes the metrics and concepts to which we were used to in previous Chapters. A new multi-modal authentication protocol is presented in this Chapter, taking advantage of the challenge-response tuples of BPUFs. An example of BPUFs is illustrated with SRAMs. A proposal to integrate the BPUFs described in Chapter 6 into the protocol of Chapter 5, as well as the final remarks of the Thesis, can be found in Chapter 7.