Blockchain Papers

Asutosh Kumar Biswal, Prasenjit Maiti, Sodyam Bebarta, Bibhudatta Sahoo · 5 authors

No abstract is available for this record.

Srinivas Jangirala, Ashok Kumar Das, Athanasios V. Vasilakos

Secure real-time data about goods in transit in supply chains needs bandwidth having capacity that is not fulfilled with the current infrastructure. Hence, 5G-enabled Internet of Things (IoT) in mobile edge computing is intended to substantially increase this capacity. To deal with this issue, in this article, we design a new efficient lightweight blockchain-enabled radio frequency identification (RFID)-based authentication protocol for supply chains in 5G mobile edge computing environment, called lightweight blockchain-enabled RFID-based authentication protocol (LBRAPS). LBRAPS is based on bitwise exclusive-or (XOR), one-way cryptographic hash and bitwise rotation operations only. LBRAPS is shown to be secure against various attacks. Moreover, the simulation-based formal security verification using the broadly-accepted Automated Validation of Internet Security Protocols and Applications (AVISPA) tool assures that LBRAPS is secure. Finally, it is shown that LBRAPS has better trade-off among its security and functionality features, communication and computation costs as compared to those for existing protocols.

Sunghyuck Hong

No abstract is available for this record.

Zengpeng Li, Ding Wang

Password-based authenticated key exchange($\mathsf {PAKE}$PAKE) protocol, a widely used authentication mechanism to realize secure communication, allows protocol participants to establish a high-entropy session key by pre-sharing a low-entropy password. An open challenge in$\mathsf {PAKE}$PAKEis how to design a quantum-resistant round-optimal$\mathsf {PAKE}$PAKE. To solve this challenge, lattice-based cryptography is a promising candidate for post-quantum cryptography. In addition, Katz and Vaikuntanathan (ASIACRYPT’09) design the firstthree-round$\mathsf {PAKE}$PAKEprotocol by leveraging the smooth projective hash function ($\mathsf {SPHF}$SPHF) over lattices. Subsequently, Zhang and Yu (AISACRYPT’17) optimized Katz-Vaikuntanathan’s approximate$\mathsf {SPHF}$SPHFvia a splittable public key encryption. They then constructed atwo-round$\mathsf {PAKE}$PAKEby using the simulation-sound non-interactive zero-knowledge (NIZK) proofs, but how to construct a lattice-based simulation-sound NIZK remains an open research question. In other words, how to design a one-round$\mathsf {PAKE}$PAKEvia an efficient lattice-based$\mathsf {SPHF}$SPHFstill remains a challenge. In this work, we attempt to fill this gap by proposing a lattice-based$\mathsf {SPHF}$SPHFwith adaptive smoothness. We then obtain aone-round$\mathsf {PAKE}$PAKEprotocol over lattices with rigorous security analysis by integrating the proposed$\mathsf {SPHF}$SPHFinto the one-round framework proposed by Katz and Vaikuntananthan (TCC’11). Furthermore, we explore the possibilities of achieving two-round$\mathsf {PAKE}$PAKEand universal composable (UC) security from our$\mathsf {SPHF}$SPHF, and show the potential application of our$\mathsf {PAKE}$PAKEin Internet of Things (IoTs) where communication cost is the main consideration.

Damjan Hudiček

U radu je opisana, implementirana i ispitana metoda authentikacije temeljena na neinteraktivnim dokazima bez poznavanja. Takva metoda omogućuje primatelju da authenticira pošiljatelja i izračuna dijeljeni ključ. Način razmjene odnosno računanja zajedničkog ključa inspiriran je Diffie-Hellman protokolom. Metoda je implementirana u C++ programskom jeziku te ispitana na prijenosnom računalu i Raspberry Pi-u. Ispitana je i uspoređena brzina authentikacije. U odnosu na srodne authentikacijske sheme, postignute su usporedive brzine uz usporedivu razinu sigurnosti.

Lijun Wei, Jing Wu, Chengnian Long, Yi‐Bing Lin

To build a large-scale distributed Internet of Things (IoT), a feasible prototype for Internet of Everything, blockchain can provide strong support with its excellent characteristics such as traceability and openness. Despite that the blockchain technology ideally enhances the reliability and security of IoT systems, emerging new security challenges remain to be resolved. This article details the security vulnerabilities in the convergence of blockchain and IoT as well as corresponding feasible solutions.

Jonathan Bootle

Zero-knowledge proofs are cryptographic protocols where a prover convinces a verifier that a statement is true, without revealing why it is true or leaking any of the prover’s secret information. Since the introduction of zero-knowledge proofs, researchers have found numerous applications to other cryptographic schemes, such as electronic voting, group signatures, and verifiable computation. Zero-knowledge proofs have also become an integral part of blockchain-based cryptocurrencies. Thus, designing efficient zero-knowledge proofs is an important goal. Recently, the design space has become extremely large. To simplify protocol design, designers have begun to separate the process into modular steps. Information theoretic protocols are designed in idealised communication models and compiled into real protocols secure under cryptographic assumptions. In this thesis, we investigate the Ideal Linear Commitment model, which characterises interactive zero-knowledge protocols where the prover and verifier use homomorphic commitment schemes. We demonstrate the model’s power by exhibiting efficient protocols for useful tasks including NP-Complete problems and other more specialised problems. We demonstrate the model’s versatility by compiling the idealised protocols into real protocols under two completely different cryptographic assumptions; the discrete logarithm assumption, and the existence of collision-resistant hash functions. We show that the Ideal Linear Commitment model is a useful and effective abstraction for producing zero-knowledge protocols. Furthermore, by identifying the limitations of the model and finding protocols outside these constraints, we display special techniques which result in more efficient zero-knowledge proofs than ever. The results are novel and highly efficient protocols. Results include the first ever discrete-logarithm argument for general statements with logarithmic communication cost, the first ever three-move discrete-logarithm argument for arithmetic circuit satisfiability with sub-linear communication costs, and an argument for list membership with sub-logarithmic communication, less than the number of bits required to specify a list index. Every single one of our protocols improves the theoretical state-of-the-art.

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

The complexity of today's supply chain, organised in several tiers and\nincluding many companies located in different countries, makes it challenging\nto assess the history and integrity of procured physical parts, and to make\norganisations really accountable for their conduct. This enables malicious\npractices like counterfeiting and insertion of back doors, which are extremely\ndangerous, especially in supply chains of physical parts for industrial control\nsystems used in critical infrastructures, where a country and human lives can\nbe put at risk. This paper aims at mitigating these issues by proposing an\napproach where procured parts are uniquely identified and tracked along the\nchain, across multiple sites, to detect tampering. Our solution is based on\nconsortium blockchain and smart contract technologies, hence it is\ndecentralised, highly available and provides strong guarantees on the integrity\nof stored data and executed business logic. The unique identification of parts\nalong the chain is implemented by using physically unclonable functions (PUFs)\nas tamper-resistant IDs. We first define the threat model of an adversary\ninterested in tampering with physical products along the supply chain, then\nprovide the design of the tracking system that implements the proposed\nanti-counterfeiting approach. We present a security analysis of the tracking\nsystem against the designated threat model and a prototype evaluation to show\nits technical feasibility and assess its effectiveness in counterfeit\nmitigation. Finally, we discuss several key practical aspects concerning our\nsolution ad its integration with real supply chains.\n

Marcus Walshe, Gregory Epiphaniou, Haider Al‐Khateeb, Mohammad Hammoudeh · 6 authors

No abstract is available for this record.

Om Pal, Bashir Alam, Vinay Thakur, Surendra Singh

Public Key Infrastructure (PKI) is used in Blockchain Technology to authenticate the entities and to ensure the integrity of the blockchain. Proper Protection of Bitcoin wallet is required for private keys, seeds and keys stored in external hardware in Blockchain infrastructure. In this paper, overview of Blockchain, analysis of existing PKI for Blockchain and key management for Blockchain wallet are discussed. To achieve the confidentiality of sensitive records over the Blockchain network, a Group Key Management scheme for secure group communication is also proposed.

Bandar Alotaibi

The Internet of Things (IoT) is a wide network consisting of Internet-connected objects using installed software, such as home appliances, vehicles, and other entities embedded with sensors, actuators, radio-frequency identification (RFID), and electronics to exchange data. In the last two decades, numerous IoT solutions have been developed by small, medium-sized, and large enterprises to make our lives easier. Furthermore, private and academic researchers have extensively investigated some practical IoT solutions. The rapid expansion of IoT solutions accompanies numerous security concerns because the underlying IoT protocols and communication technologies have not considered security. Recently, blockchain has emerged to become one of the promising technologies that might overcome some of the IoT limitations (security limitations, in particular). Blockchain technology is a database ledger that uses a peer-to-peer (P2P) network and stores transactions and asset registries. Blockchain can be described as a mounting list of records (i.e., blocks) with the following properties: distributed, decentralized, immutable, and shared. This paper surveyed recent security advances to overcome IoT limitations using blockchain. In this article, the blockchain attempts to overcome IoT limitations that are related to cyber security have been classified into four categories: end-to-end traceability; data privacy and anonymity; identity verification and authentication; and confidentiality, data integrity, and availability (CIA). Intended as a guideline for future research, this paper also explores systematic processes.

Chengzhe Lai, Yuhan Ding

Vehicular Ad-hoc Network (VANET) can provide vehicle to vehicle (V2V) and vehicle to infrastructure (V2I) communications for efficient and safe transportation. The vehicles features high mobility, thus undergoing frequent handovers when they are moving, which introduces the significant overload on the network entities. To address the problem, the distributed mobility management (DMM) protocol for next generation mobile network has been proposed, which can be well combined with VANETs. Although the existing DMM solutions can guarantee the smooth handovers of vehicles, the security has not been fully considered in the mobility management. Moreover, the most of existing schemes cannot support group communication scenario. In this paper, we propose an efficient and secure group mobility management scheme based on the blockchain. Specifically, to reduce the handover latency and signaling cost during authentication, aggregate message authentication code (AMAC) and one-time password (OTP) are adopted. The security analysis and the performance evaluation results show that the proposed scheme can not only enhance the security functionalities but also support fast handover authentication.

Zhaojun Lu, Qian Wang, Gang Qu, Haichun Zhang · 5 authors

The privacy-preserving authentication is considered as the first line of defense against the attacks in addition to preserving the identity privacy of the vehicles in the vehicular ad hoc networks (VANETs). However, the existing authentication schemes suffer from drawbacks such as nontransparency of the trusted authorities (TAs), heavy workload to revoke certificates, and high computation overhead to authenticate identities and messages. In this paper, we propose a blockchain-based privacy-preserving authentication (BPPA) scheme for VANETs. In BPPA, all the certificates and transactions are recorded permanently and immutably in the blockchain to make the activities of the semi-TAs transparent and verifiable. However, it remains a challenge how to use such blockchain effectively for authentication in real driving scenarios (e.g., high speed or large amount of messages during congestion). With a novel data structure named the Merkle Patricia tree (MPT), we extend the conventional blockchain structure to provide a distributed authentication scheme without the revocation list. To achieve conditional privacy, we allow a vehicle to use multiple certificates. The linkability between the certificates and real identity is encrypted and stored in the blockchain and can only be revealed in case of disputes. We evaluate the validity and performance of BPPA on the Hyperledger Fabric (HLF) platform for each entity. The experimental results show that the distributed authentication can be processed by individual vehicles within 1 ms, which meets the real-time requirement and is much more efficient, in terms of the processing time and storage requirement, than existing approaches.

Laurent Chuat, Sarah Plocher, Adrian Perrig

User authentication can rely on various factors (e.g., a password, a cryptographic key, biometric data) but should not reveal any secret or private information. This seemingly paradoxical feat can be achieved through zero-knowledge proofs. Unfortunately, naive password-based approaches still prevail on the web. Multi-factor authentication schemes address some of the weaknesses of the traditional login process, but generally have deployability issues or degrade usability even further as they assume users do not possess adequate hardware. This assumption no longer holds: smartphones with biometric sensors, cameras, short-range communication capabilities, and unlimited data plans have become ubiquitous. In this paper, we show that, assuming the user has such a device, both security and usability can be drastically improved using an augmented password-authenticated key agreement (PAKE) protocol and message authentication codes.

Xu, B., Agbele, T., Jiang, R.

Blockchain has been emerging as a promising technology that could totally change the landscape of data security in the coming years, particularly for data access over Internet-of-Things and cloud servers. However, blockchain itself, though secured by its protocol, does not identify who owns the data and who uses the data. Other than simply encrypting data into keys, in this paper, we proposed a protocol called Biometric Blockchain (BBC) that explicitly incorporate the biometric cues of individuals to unambiguously identify the creators and users in a blockchain-based system, particularly to address the increasing needs to secure the food logistics, following the recently widely reported incident on wrongly labelled foods that caused the death of a customer on a flight. The advantage of using BBC in the food logistics is clear: it can not only identify if the data or labels are authentic, but also clearly record who is responsible for the secured data or labels. As a result, such a BBC-based solution can great ease the difficulty to control the risks accompanying the food logistics, such as faked foods or wrong gradient labels.

Weizhi Meng, Wenjuan Li, Liqiu Zhu

Internet of Things (IoT) has gradually become one of the most important platforms across different disciplines, by enabling dedicated physical objects to communicate with other Internet-enabled things. With this trend, more devices in medical environments are capable of connecting with each other, named Internet of Medical Things (IoMT). It aims for improving efficiency and reducing communication delay, e.g., monitoring the status of patients and notifying abnormal events. However, due to the distributed nature, insider attacks are still one of the major threats to such IoT environment. How to improve the trust management in IoMT remains a challenge. Motivated by the popularity of blockchain technology, in this paper, our general goal is to investigate the performance of blockchain-based trust management. In particular, we focus on a particular type of IoMT, named medical smartphone networks (MSNs), because of the wide adoption of smartphones in the medical domain. Then, we apply blockchains for enhancing the effectiveness of Bayesian inference-based trust management to detect malicious nodes in MSNs. In the evaluation, we explore the performance of our approach in two different healthcare environments, and experimental results demonstrate that blockchain technology can help improve the detection efficiency of detecting malicious nodes with reasonable workload.

Mehmet Aydar, Salih Cemil Cetin, Serkan Ayvaz, Betul Aygun

The disruptive technology of blockchain can deliver secure solutions without the need for a central authority. In blockchain protocols, assets that belong to a participant are controlled through the private key of an asymmetric key pair that is owned by the participant. Although, this lets blockchain network participants to have sovereignty on their assets, it comes with the responsibility of managing their own keys. Currently, there exists two major bottlenecks in managing keys; $a)$ users don't have an efficient and secure way to store their keys, $b)$ no efficient recovery mechanism exists in case the keys are lost. In this study, we propose secure methods to efficiently store and recover keys. For the first, we introduce an efficient encryption mechanism to securely encrypt and decrypt the private key using the owner's biometric signature. For the later, we introduce an efficient recovery mechanism using biometrics and secret sharing scheme. By applying the proposed key encryption and recovery mechanism, asset owners are able to securely store their keys on their devices and recover the keys in case they are lost.

Gustavo Betarte, Maximiliano Cristiá, Carlos Luna, Adrián Silveira · 5 authors

MimbleWimble is a privacy-oriented cryptocurrency technology encompassing security and scalability properties that distinguish it from other protocols of the kind. In this paper we present and briefly discuss those properties and outline the basis of a model-driven verification approach to address the certification of the correctness of a particular implementation of the protocol.

Levi Dolan, Bethany Kavanaugh, Kevin Korinek, Brittney Sandler

Blockchain technology allows data to be effectively organized, stored, and shared. Its unique decentralized authentication system means no central database exists to store information. All information is shared by a network of nodes and is continuously updated. Blockchain is currently being used across several industries due to its unique features: tamper-proof records, authenticity, transparency, and elimination of third-party brokers. These features offer potential for applications in libraries, archives, and museums as well.

Yingying Wang, Guoqiang Li

Blockchain provides a decentralized trade means, which has attracted both academic and industrial researchers' attention. It was first proposed as the basic structure of bitcoin. In practice, it could be hacked for gaining profit or performing some illegal transactions, hence, a question about how to detect these potential risks has been raised. This paper builds a model for blockchain core protocol, and adopts the trace semantics, i.e. a sequence of actions, which can record any possible conditions that the running protocol may reach. Also, as an application of DDoS attack on blockchain, triangle attack is shown and can be formalized and detected by the contradiction to the security property. Furthermore, some advice to defend the triangle attack are presented.

Eman Alharbi, Daniyal Alghazzawi

The authentication process is the main step which should be used to confirm that the user is the legitimate one and give the access only for him. Recently, Two Factor Authentication (2FA) schemes have been used by most of the applications to add an extra layer of security on the login process and solve the vulnerabilities of using only one factor for authentication. OTP-SMS is one of the most common methods which has been used in 2FA. However, attackers found a way to attack this method and gain an access to the user’s account without their permission. In this paper, we proposed a new 2FA framework for OTP-SMS method to prevent different attacks, mainly Man In The Middle (MITM) attack and third party attack. The proposed framework is based on the use of Blockchain technology, which add more security and better environment for authentication process. The proposed framework uses an encrypted OTP, which generated by smart contract and uses also its hash value to send it to the application/website to complete the authentication process. We introduced a comparison between our proposed framework and other two frameworks which uses Blockchain to secure OTP-SMS. Our framework found to be secure against MITM and third party attacks and the computation time and complexity are less than other frameworks.

Haibo Yi

No abstract is available for this record.

Vanga Odelu

No abstract is available for this record.

Francesco Morano, Claudio Ferretti, Alberto Leporati, Paolo Napoletano · 5 authors

The number of sensors in cars and other vehicles has significantly increased in the last few years. Such sensors are used to monitor vehicle telemetry as well as driver's biometric and physiological data, with the aim of increasing the safety of people and decreasing the number of accidents. Data monitored by these sensors may also be used by insurance companies or police for accident, or more in general, event reconstruction. Whatever is the use, this data should be protected against cybersecurity attacks in order to guarantee the privacy of the drivers, and to prevent malicious modifications performed with the aim of cheating the insurance companies or police. The goal of this paper is to propose a framework, based on a permissioned blockchain, that allows to both guarantee driver data protection and evidential property of data. The scenario explored considers data recorded inside the car, encrypted and transferred to a cloud storage service. The encrypted version of the data is also hashed and hash is stored in the blockchain, to guarantee data integrity and inalterability. At the same time, the blockchain can be used as an official ledger for preserving the probative value of data.