Mohammad Wazid, Basudeb Bera, Ashok Kumar Das, Saraju P. Mohanty · 5 authors
Smart vehicles-enabled intelligent transportation system (ITS) supports a wide range of applications, such as, but not limited to, traffic planning and management, collision avoidance alert system, automated road speed enforcement, electronic toll collection, and real-time parking management, to name a few. However, it suffers from various types of security and privacy issues due to insecure communication among the entities over public channels. Therefore, an efficient and lightweight security mechanism is essential to protect the data that is both at rest as well as in transit. To this direction, we propose a public blockchain-envisioned secure communication framework for ITS (PBSCF-ITS). The proposed PBSCF-ITS guarantees access control and key management among the vehicle to vehicle, vehicle to roadside unit, and roadside unit to cloud server. We analyze the security of PBSCF-ITS to prove its resilience against various types of possible attacks. Furthermore, the performance of PBSCF-ITS with other related competing schemes has been compared. The obtained results illustrate that PBSCF-ITS outperforms the existing ones. Additionally, the pragmatic study of PBSCF-ITS is conducted to check its influence on various network-related performance parameters, like the number of mined blocks and transactions per block.
Nowadays, continuous monitoring of a patient’s healthcare data has become a critical factor in human well-being. However, with the rapid advancement of wireless technology, doctors and healthcare professionals can monitor the patient’s healthcare data in real time. But to access the confidential patient’s data which is transferred through the open wireless medium, the secure transmission plays an important role. In this work, the privacy and the anonymity of the end-users (patient/doctor) are preserved using an anonymous blockchain-based authentication scheme. Moreover, in this work initially, mutual authentication is performed between the end-users, followed by encryption and decryption of confidential data. In addition, to avoid reauthentication of the patient again during the movement of a patient from one doctor to another, a transfer authentication protocol is performed between the doctors which enhances performance analysis. The security analysis section illustrates the withstanding capability of the proposed work against various vulnerable attacks. Finally, performance investigation of the proposed work reveals a reduction in computational and communication costs when compared to existing related works.
Abstract Cryptocurrency‐based transactions are exposed to serious security risks, usually higher than risks related to traditional online transactions. The threats range from unintentional credential leaks, through fraudulent cryptocurrency exchanges and poorly implemented protocols, to broken private keys. Therefore, there is a business need for insurance services dedicated to cryptocurrencies that would be technologically as well as economically secure for both insuring and insured party. In this paper an architecture for cryptocurrency insurance framework along with a set of corresponding communication protocols and a smart contract template that jointly reduce various security risks are proposed. The detailed description of the solution is followed by the security analysis section. Also, the description of the presented solution is preceded by a general risk analysis related to cryptocurrency unit security and countermeasures analysis related to those risks. The authors believe that the presented technological solution can potentially enable new business models based on crypto‐insurance services.
Nikita Konstantinovich Chistousov, Igor A. Kalmykov, Daniil Vyacheslavovich Dukhovnyj, М. И. Калмыков · 5 authors
Authentication protocols are expanding their application scope in wireless information systems, among which are low-orbit satellite communication systems (LOSCS) for the OneWeb space Internet, automatic object identification systems using RFID, the Internet of Things, intelligent transportation systems (ITS), Vehicular Ad Hoc Network (VANET). This is due to the fact that authentication protocols effectively resist a number of attacks on wireless data transmission channels in these systems. The main disadvantage of most authentication protocols is the use of symmetric and asymmetric encryption systems to ensure high cryptographic strength. As a result, there is a problem in delivering keys to the sides of the prover and the verifier. At the same time, compromising of keys will lead to a decrease in the level of protection of the transmitted data. Zero-knowledge authentication protocols (ZKAP) are able to eliminate this disadvantage. However, most of these protocols use multiple rounds to authenticate the prover. Therefore, ZKAP, which has minimal time costs, is developed in the article. A scheme for adapting protocol parameters has been developed in this protocol to increase its efficiency. Reductions in the level of confidentiality allow us to reduce the time spent on the execution of the authentication protocol. This increases the volume of information traffic. At the same time, an increase in the confidentiality of the protocol entails an increase in the time needed for authentication of the prover, which reduces the volume of information traffic. The FPGA Artix-7 xc7a12ticsg325-1L was used to estimate the time spent implementing the adaptive ZKAP protocol. Testing was performed for 32- and 64-bit adaptive authentication protocols.
In current single sign-on authentication schemes on the web, users are required to interact with identity providers securely to set up authentication data during a registration phase and receive a token (credential) for future access to services and applications. This type of interaction can make authentication schemes challenging in terms of security and availability. From a security perspective, a main threat is theft of authentication reference data stored with identity providers. An adversary could easily abuse such data to mount an offline dictionary attack for obtaining the underlying password or biometric. From a privacy perspective, identity providers are able to track user activity and control sensitive user data. In terms of availability, users rely on trusted third-party servers that need to be available during authentication. We propose a novel decentralized privacy-preserving single sign-on scheme through the Decentralized Anonymous Multi-Factor Authentication (DAMFA), a new authentication scheme where identity providers no longer require sensitive user data and can no longer track individual user activity. Moreover, our protocol eliminates dependence on an always-on identity provider during user authentication, allowing service providers to authenticate users at any time without interacting with the identity provider. Our approach builds on threshold oblivious pseudorandom functions (TOPRF) to improve resistance against offline attacks and uses a distributed transaction ledger to improve availability. We prove the security of DAMFA in the universal composibility (UC) model by defining a UC definition (ideal functionality) for DAMFA and formally proving the security of our scheme via ideal-real simulation. Finally, we demonstrate the practicability of our proposed scheme through a prototype implementation.
Seunghwan Son, Joonyoung Lee, Yohan Park, Youngho Park · 5 authors
Connected vehicle means providing different services, such as advanced driver-assistance systems (ADAS) from vehicles connected to the network. Vehicular ad-hoc networks (VANETs) can support vehicle-to-vehicle (V2V) and vehicle-to-infrastructure (V2I) communications to realize connected vehicle. In VANETs, secure communication must be ensured, as otherwise it can lead to traffic accidents and human injuries. Recently, many studies on V2I authentication have been conducted to guarantee the security of V2I communications. However, recent V2I authentication protocols do not consider the handover situation, and it causes unnecessary computations. As vehicles have limited computing resources, unnecessary computation can lead to overload to the vehicles. In recent years, blockchain-based VANET is an active field of research because it can provide decentralization, data integrity and transparency. Using the strength of the blockchain technology, we design a blockchain-based handover authentication protocol for VANETs. In the proposed protocol, vehicles only perform lightweight computations in handover situations for efficiency of the network. We also conduct the formal analysis such as Burrows–Abadi–Needham (BAN) logic, Real-Or-Random (ROR) oracle model, and Automated Validation of Internet Security Protocols and Applications (AVISPA) simulation to the proposed protocol. We simulate the proposed protocol using network simulator 3 (NS-3) to verify that the proposed protocol is practical. Finally, we compare the computational cost and security features of the proposed protocol with existing protocols to show that the proposed protocol is more secure and efficient.
ETC systems today use technology that can be exploited to track toll users. This work develops a GPS-free toll collection that uses a zero-knowledge proof to verify V2X On-board units (OBU) in a way that prioritizes security and privacy while accommodating resource limitations of the embedded technology. Our privacy preserving ETC protocol consists of three parts: a mutual authentication handshake, a zero-knowledge proof challenge, and a verification for toll-payment processing. Bench analysis evaluates embedded systems' limitations of algorithmic operations, and field tests of challenges are conducted in a real-life scenario to show proof-of-concept among V2X interference.
Patients go to multiple healthcare providers for treatment, and their health data is generally distributed among providers. The distributed health data and the decentralized health care system structure make it ideal for blockchain-based health information systems. The authors consider the referral use case; for instance, a patient goes to his primary health Centre (PHC) for treatment and is referred to a hospital. Authentication is usually done using certificates or key cryptography, which could become cumbersome when multiple parties are involved in a healthcare interaction. The security requirements were defined, and a novel multi-party, mutual patient identity authentication scheme called “Distributed Dynamic Mutual Identity Authentication (DDMIA)” was proposed for the referral use case in a blockchain-based e-health network. The DDMIA enables the PHC to authenticate the patient to the referred hospital. The DDMIA scheme was designed using Elliptic Curve Cryptography. It was proven to be secure by assuming the hardness of the elliptic curve discrete log problem (ECDLP) and Elliptic curve computational Diffie–Hellman problem (ECDH) using CK-Model. The formal security analysis using BAN logic proved that the sessions are secure after authentication. The DDMIA scheme was simulated in the AVISPA tool and proven safe against all active attacks. DDMIA scheme was simulated in the AVISPA tool and proven safe against all active attacks. The scheme allows a patient to be authenticated by multiple parties without registering with all parties. It eliminates the need for multiple registration centers as well as digital certificates. Hence, the DDMIA scheme can be implemented for similar multiparty authentication requirements in blockchain-based networks.
Samiulla Itoo, Akber Ali Khan, Vinod Kumar, Ahmed Alkhayyat · 6 authors
In the traditional medical healthcare system, each medical facility is responsible for preserving its own records. Sharing such records with another medical establishment is difficult for them. To tackle this challenge, the traditional medical system leverages internet technology to transform into a modern electronic system. In electronic healthcare systems, managing the security and privacy of patient data becomes a major issue. As an alternative, the healthcare sector might use blockchain technology to exchange digitised healthcare data. Blockchain technology is characterised by anonymity, decentralisation, and immutability. It is hard to keep all electronic healthcare data on blockchain due to the expense and volume. Cloud computing is the best solution for storing this type of data and resolving problems like these. To address these concerns, we offer a blockchain-based key agreement protocol for cloud medical network systems that enhances privacy and security. We demonstrate a formal and informal security analysis of the proposed protocol that shows that the proposed protocol is both secure and communicative. We provide security verification of the proposed protocol by using the AVISPA software tool against man in the middle attack and replay attack. Finally, we compute the computation and communication costs of the proposed protocol and other existing protocols, the proposed protocol has less computation and communication costs than other existing protocols in the electronic healthcare system.
Akhtar Badshah, Muhammad Waqas, Fazal Muhammad, Ghulam Abbas · 7 authors
The next-generation Internet of vehicles (IoVs) seamlessly connects humans, vehicles, roadside units (RSUs), and service platforms, to improve road safety, enhance transit efficiency, and deliver comfort while conserving the environment. Currently, numerous entities communicate in the IoVs environment via insecure public channels that are susceptible to a variety of security assaults and threats. To address these security challenges, we design an anonymous authenticated key exchange mechanism for the IoVs in smart transportation supported by blockchain, referred to as AAKE-BIVT. AAKE-BIVT securely transmits traffic information to a cluster head, before heading to a nearby RSU utilizing the established secret session keys via mutual authentication and key agreement. A cloud server (CS) then securely aggregates data from related RSUs and generates transactions. The CS combines the transactions into blocks in a peer-to-peer network of CSs, and the blocks are confirmed and added to the blockchain via a voting-based consensus method. By means of rigorous informal security studies and formal security analysis through the random oracle model, we reveal that the proposed AAKE-BIVT is resistant to a broad range of potential security assaults in the IoVs environment. Furthermore, a comparative study reveals that AAKE-BIVT outperforms existing state-of-the-art techniques, in terms of security and functionality while being more efficient in terms of communication and computation. Additionally, the blockchain simulation validates the implementation viability of our proposed AAKE-BIVT.
Jing Zhang, Yue Jiang, Jie Cui, Debiao He · 6 authors
Vehicular ad hoc networks (VANETs) connect all vehicles through wireless channels. They provide extensive real-time traffic information services that improve driving safety and traffic management efficiency. However, VANETs are vulnerable to security attacks because of the open wireless nature of their communication channels. Most security mechanisms for traditional VANETs are centralized and have certain limitations in satisfying security requirements, such as anti-single-point failure, distributed security authentication of messages, and privacy preservation in VANETs. To address these issues, herein, we propose a dual blockchain-assisted conditional privacy-preserving authentication framework and protocol for VANETs. The identity authentication and privacy preservation of vehicles in VANETs can be realized without relying on a centralized trusted third party. The proposed scheme also allows for the conditional tracking of illegal vehicles. The decentralized dynamic revocation of illegal vehicles can be realized through smart contracts, rendering the scheme efficient and scalable. We implement this scheme in an Ethereum test network to demonstrate its feasibility and conduct an in-depth security analysis and comprehensive performance evaluation of the proposed scheme. The results demonstrate that the proposed scheme is an effective solution for the development of a decentralized authentication system for VANETs.
The Internet of Vehicles (IoV) has evolved as an advancement over the conventional Vehicular Ad-hoc Networks (VANETs) in pursuing a more optimal intelligent transportation system that can provide various intelligent solutions and enable a variety of applications for vehicular traffic. Massive volumes of data are produced and communicated wirelessly among the different relayed entities in these vehicular networks, which might entice adversaries and endanger the system with a wide range of security attacks. To ensure the security of such a sensitive network, we proposed a distributed authentication mechanism for IoV based on blockchain technology as a distributed ledger with an ouroboros algorithm. Using timestamp and challenge-response mechanisms, the proposed authentication model can withstand several security attacks such as Man-in-Middle (MiM) attacks, Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks, server spoofing attacks and more. The proposed method also provides a solution for single-point failure, forward secrecy, revocability, etc. We exhibit the security of our proposed model by using formal (mathematical) analysis and informal analysis. We used Random Oracle Model to perform the mathematical analysis. In addition, we compared the communication cost, computation cost, and security of the proposed model with the related existing studies. We have verified the security of the model by using AVISPA tool simulation. The security analysis and computation analysis show that the proposed protocol is viable.
Les protocoles à connaissance nulle nous donnent une façon par laquelle un prouver(s) peut convaincre un vérificateur(s) qu’un énoncé est vrai sans lui dévoiler quoi que ce soit d’autre. Ces preuves à connaissance nulle nous apportent une solution élégante au problème de s’identifier sans pour autant révéler un quelconque secret. Dans ce travail, notre point de mire porte sur les protocoles multi-prouveurs relativistes à connaissance nulle pour paires distanciées de prouveurs-vérificateurs. Initialement, nous démontrons que le protocole expérimental multi-prouveurs relativiste à connaissance nulle décrit dans le papier récent de \cite{alikhani2020experimental} est sécuritaire face à des prouveurs classiques. Ensuite, nous prouvons que ce même protocole constitue une preuve de connaissance pour le même langage. Enfin, nous démontrons que ce même protocole satisfait une forme plus forte de « à connaissance nulle » en exhibant une paire de simulateurs non-signalant contrairement aux simulateurs habituels qui sont signalants. La sécurité du protocole est obtenue grâce au principe physique de la relativité restreinte
Vehicular Ad-hoc Networks (VANETs) are with great potentials to facilitate traffic management and improve driver safety. Blockchain-based conditional privacy-preserving authentication (BCPPA) is proposed to achieve an optimal tradeoff among anonymity, traceability and key/certificate management in VANETs. Existing BCPPA protocols mitigate these security and privacy challenges by adding a significant cost on verification and traceability. As a result, current solutions fail to meet high mobility, low latency, and real-time requirements of VANETs. In this paper, we design three new system building blocks namely key derivation (KeyDer), signatures of knowledge (SoK) and smart contract, following by a more efficient BCPPA protocol (named as EBCPA). To show the advantage of EBCPA, we first demonstrate it can satisfy the necessary requirements (e.g. message authentication, conditional privacy protection, resilience to common attacks, and so forth). Moreover, we implement the EBCPA in the on-line Ethereum test network (Rinkeby), Hyperledger test network and VANETs simulation environment (via VanetMobiSim and NS-2). Finally, we evaluate its communication overhead and computational cost via comparing to existing BCPPA protocols that strive to achieve similar properties. From the implementation and comparison results, our proposal can improve efficiency by reducing the time cost of traceability at least 48.95% and verification at least 42.21%.
This work is focused on the description of one verifiable encryption scheme, specifically a zero-knowledge proof of knowledge protocol. Verifiable encryption allows us to prove properties of data without revealing its content. The main goal of the presented method is verification of knowledge of a secret key. This method can be used for group signa- tures, multiple steps secret sharing, key escrow protocols, and many others cryptographic protocols. It is based on the hardness of the Ring-LWE problem and problems of finding solutions to linear relations over some ring. It uses the principle of rejection sampling. The method is build on two closely described cryptographic protocols, Ring-LWE and Fiat-Shamir with aborts. It uses the construction of polynomial rings R = Z[x]/(xn + 1) a Rq = Zq[x]/(xn + 1). 1
ABSTRACT The period from the mid-1990s to the mid-2000s saw the transformation of information and communication infrastructure. In the same period, TPRC evolved from a narrower focus on conventional telecommunications and information policy to “The Research Conference on Communications, Information, and Internet Policy.” Through the lens of my own interdisciplinary work on Internet policy and intersecting TPRC activity, this retrospective describes an arc of change that began at the 1994 TPRC and continued for about a decade. It combines description, commentary, and reflections on what this history might bode for TPRC as metaverses and Web3 progress from today’s hype to tomorrow’s Internet.
Pedro Antonino, Juliandson Ferreira, Augusto Sampaio, A. W. Roscoe
Smart contract evolution is crucial for the success of decentralized applications, and current methods and processes are not well suited to handle these drivers of change, as the knowledge about the software is predominantly stored in informal documents. In addition, they are the building blocks of the ”code is law” paradigm: the smart contract’s code indisputably describes how its assets are to be managed - once it is created, its code is typically immutable. Faulty smart contracts present the most significant evidence against the practicality of this paradigm; they are well-documented and resulted in assets worth vast sums of money being compromised. To address this issue, the Ethereum community proposed (i) tools and processes to audit/analyse smart contracts, and (ii) design patterns implementing a mechanism to make contract code mutable. Individually, (i) and (ii) only partially address the challenges raised by the ”code is law” paradigm. In this work, we combine elements from (i) and (ii) to create a systematic framework that moves away from ”code is law” and gives rise to a new ”specifica- tion is law” paradigm. It allows contracts to be created and upgraded but only if they meet a corresponding formal specification. We explain how formal verification techniques can be used to ensure safety properties of smart contracts during their evolution. Although formal verification methods have the potential of being used in several application fields, we focus on ensuring compliance with its specifications. The process consists of three phases: Formal requirements specification, verification, and deployment. All steps are planned and executed in an integrated way and together they form a framework capable of fostering safe evolution and make it more reliable and secure. The framework is centered around a trusted deployer: an off-chain service that formally verifies and enforces specification conformance. We have proto- typed this framework, and investigated its applicability to contracts implementing three widely used Ethereum standards: the ERC20 Token Standard, ERC3156 Flash Loans and ERC1155 Multi Token Standard, with promising results.
Abstract The information system of healthcare operates through various frameworks, like wireless body area network, telecare medical information system, and mobile or electronic healthcare. All these systems need to maintain the personal health records (PHRs) for various users (ie, patients, doctors, and nurses). In such systems, we need to process and store the health related sensitive data (ie, PHRs). In this article, we aim to provide a robust security mechanism to secure exchange and storage of healthcare data, especially PHRs. We present a generic architecture of blockchain‐enabled secure communication mechanism for Internet of Things‐driven personal health records (BIPHRS). We then discuss various threats and security attacks of healthcare system along with different available security mechanisms. The conducted security analysis and detailed comparative study of the state of art blockchain enabled security schemes for PHR systems show that the proposed BIPHRS provides a better security and more functionality features as compared to other similar existing approaches.
Xuechun Mao, Lin You, Chengtang Cao, Gengran Hu · 5 authors
Biometric encryption, especially based on fingerprint, plays an important role in privacy protection and identity authentication. In this paper, we construct a privacy-preserving linkable ring signature scheme. In our scheme, we utilize a fuzzy symmetric encryption scheme called symmetric keyring encryption (SKE) to hide the secret key and use non-interactive zero-knowledge (NIZK) protocol to ensure that we do not leak any information about the message. Unlike the blind signature, we use NIZK protocol to cancel the interaction between the signer (the prover) and the verifier. The security proof shows that our scheme is secure under the random oracle model. Finally, we implement it on a personal computer and analyze the performance of the constructed scheme in practical terms. Based on the constructed scheme and demo, we give an anonymous cryptocurrency transaction model as well as mobile demonstration.