In this modern world, every field has transitioned from traditional written to digital records. Fields such as healthcare involve sensitive digital records; ensuring secure access to them while protecting patients’ privacy is crucial. This paper provides a novel approach for a secure access control system that employs blockchain with zero-knowledge proofs (ZKP) and facial recognition to enhance the security of sensitive records. Face verification is used as biometric-based identity verification, and hence, captured images need to be processed securely. By encrypting such data on the client side and storing user biometric data, the system’s design prioritizes user privacy. It ensures that biometric data is protected while maintaining standard access control features. The system utilizes ZKP to authenticate users without revealing their private keys, ensuring robust authentication. Incorporating blockchain technology decentralizes the proof verification process and acts as a potential way to achieve tamper-proof storage, thus reducing the possibility of unauthorized access. Experimental results show that the proposed system achieves face verification and secure access validation 2x and 1.5x faster than the previous approaches. By undergoing a detailed design, extensive evaluation, and validation of the proposed system, this paper demonstrates the system’s security and provides seamless access to authorized healthcare professionals.
Patients and healthcare authorities frequently lack confidence in one another when it comes to the security of their medical records in healthcare settings. Particularly when it comes to patient data management, hospitals are infamous for having inadequate security and have long been the target of cyberattacks. Using blockchain technology to store medical records has drawbacks, including an excessive dependence on centralised cloud servers for key storage, privacy concerns and the potential for attackers to deduce personal information about patients based on their blockchain activity. A system where patients have autonomy over their medical records and who can view them is a promising scenario. This article provides a framework for indexing and securing a user’s medical records, with emphasis placed on the healthcare setting using an Ethereum blockchain. The records are secured using biometric authentication and the patient’s Personal Identifiable Information (PII). The patient can grant and revoke access to their records to individual healthcare authorities, and the Interplanetary Name System (IPNS) is used for off-chain record storage. The framework is modular and can be adapted for use in other environments, such as proof of ownership of tickets, and storing travel documents for verification by border control. A smart contract is used to store the hashes of the patient’s iris scans on an Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) compatible blockchain. Privacy-preserving identifiers are used to anonymise the patient and where their records are stored on the blockchain. Our approach is to the best of our knowledge the only one that simultaneously offers encryption, anonymity, unlinkability and efficient off-chain storage. Additionally, our approach is the only approach we are aware of that provides record revocability.
Daniël Reijsbergen, Eyasu Getahun Chekole, Howard Halim, Jianying Zhou
Biometric authentication relies on physiological or behavioral traits that are inherent to a user, making them difficult to lose, forge or forget. Biometric data with a temporal component enable the following authentication protocol: recent readings of the underlying biometrics are encoded as time series and compared to a set of base readings. If the distance between the new readings and the base readings falls within an acceptable threshold, then the user is successfully authenticated. Various methods exist for comparing time series data, such as Dynamic Time Warping (DTW) and the Time Warp Edit Distance (TWED), each offering advantages and drawbacks depending on the context. Moreover, many of these techniques do not inherently preserve privacy, which is a critical consideration in biometric authentication due to the complexity of resetting biometric credentials. In this work, we propose ZK-SERIES to provide privacy and efficiency to a broad spectrum of time series-based authentication protocols. ZK-SERIES uses the same building blocks, i.e., zero-knowledge multiplication proofs and efficiently batched range proofs, to ensure consistency across all protocols. Furthermore, it is optimized for compatibility with low-capacity devices such as smartphones. To assess the effectiveness of our proposed technique, we primarily focus on two case studies for biometric authentication: shake-based and blow-based authentication. To demonstrate ZK-SERIES's practical applicability even in older and less powerful smartphones, we conduct experiments on a 5-year-old low-spec smartphone using real data for two case studies alongside scalability assessments using artificial data. Our experimental results indicate that the privacy-preserving authentication protocol can be completed within 1.3 seconds on older devices.
The widespread adoption of e-health systems raises critical concerns regarding data privacy and network security. Ensuring secure and reliable data sharing between patients and healthcare professionals remains a significant challenge. To address this, we propose a novel anonymous authentication scheme tailored for e-health environments, integrating zero-knowledge proof (ZKP) with multimodal biometrics. Our key contributions are as follows: (1) applying the Pedersen vector commitment algorithm to construct a biometric-based ZKP scheme, thereby ensuring enhanced security and privacy-preserving authentication; (2) utilizing multimodal cancelable biometrics generate (MCBG) technology, integrating fingerprint, face, and iris modalities to strengthen the security of the verification process; and (3) providing a detailed security analysis that demonstrates our scheme meets essential security requirements, including anonymity, authenticity, unlinkability, forward security, and resistance to replay attacks. Experimental results demonstrate stable proving and verification time of approximately 78 ms and 140 ms, respectively, regardless of the proof range, validating its efficiency and practicality for secure authentication in e-health systems.
Xenia Hofmeier, Andrea Raguso, Ralf Sasse, Dennis Jackson · 5 authors
Aggregate signatures are digital signatures that compress multiple signatures from different parties into a single signature, thereby reducing storage and bandwidth requirements. BLS aggregate signatures are a popular kind of aggregate signature, deployed by Ethereum, Dfinity, and Cloudflare amongst others, currently undergoing standardization at the IETF. However, BLS aggregate signatures are difficult to use correctly, with nuanced requirements that must be carefully handled by protocol developers. In this work, we design the first models of aggregate signatures that enable formal verification tools, such as Tamarin and ProVerif, to be applied to protocols using these signatures. We introduce general models that are based on the cryptographic security definition of generic aggregate signatures, allowing the attacker to exploit protocols where the security requirements are not satisfied. We also introduce a second family of models formalizing BLS aggregate signatures in particular. We demonstrate our approach's practical relevance by modelling and analyzing in Tamarin a device attestation protocol called SANA. Despite SANA's claimed correctness proof, with Tamarin we uncover undocumented assumptions that, when omitted, lead to attacks.
This study investigates the integration of the Portuguese Citizen’s Card authentication with Hyperledger Fabric blockchain technology, addressing the challenge of bridging traditional government-issued digital identities with blockchain-based systems, particularly focusing on reducing barriers to Web3 adoption for users unfamiliar with decentralized technologies. The proposed solution leverages the Autenticação.gov Software Development Kit (SDK), developed by the Portuguese Agency for Administrative Modernization (AMA) to create a secure bridge between the Citizen’s Card authentication system and Hyperledger Fabric's permissioned blockchain framework. The study examines how this approach can facilitate the development of transparent, tamper-proof authentication systems suitable for critical applications such as e-voting and digital government services, and also feasible for on-premises systems. The findings suggest that integrating existing digital identity systems with blockchain technology can promote wider acceptance of decentralized solutions while maintaining security, privacy, and accessibility standards required for public sector applications.
Abdullah Ayub Khan, Asif Ali Laghari, Roobaea Alroobaea, Abdullah M. Baqasah · 7 authors
The Internet of Things (IoMT) has revolutionized the global landscape by enabling the hierarchy of interconnectivity between medical devices, sensors, and healthcare applications. Significant limitations in terms of scalability, privacy, and security are associated with this connection. This study presents a scalable, lightweight hybrid authentication system that integrates blockchain and edge computing within a Hyperledger Consortium network to address such real-time problems, particularly the use of Hyperledger Indy. For secure authentication, Hyperledger ensures a permissioned, decentralized, and impenetrable environment, while edge computing lowers latency by processing data closer to IoMT devices. The proposed framework balances security and computing performance by utilizing a hybrid cryptographic technique, like NuCypher Threshold Proxy Re-Encryption. Applicational activities are now appropriate for IoMT devices with limited resources thanks to this integration. By facilitating cooperation between numerous stakeholders with restricted access, the consortium network improves scalability and data governance. Comparing the proposed framework to the state-of-the-art techniques, experimental evaluation shows that it reduces latency by 2.93% and increases authentication efficiency by 98.33%. Therefore, in contrast to current solutions, guarantee data integrity and transparency between patients, consultants, and hospitals. The development of dependable, scalable, and secure IoMT applications is facilitated by this work, enabling next-generation medical applications.
T Gomathi, S. Maflin Shaby, Saroo Raj R B, Prathap Kumar K
Body Area Network (BAN) systems ensure that physically integrated wearable and implantable biomedical devices are networked to make health monitoring possible. However, one of the major difficult issues that researchers and practicing health professionals have continued to face is protecting identified sensitive health information while at the same time addressing the consumer's right to privacy. ZHIs can offer significant benefits to assist BAN systems improve data security and privacy by enabling one party to prove the possession of certain information without revealing it to another party. This study focuses on the BAN into which ZKPs are incorporated to enhance the security of authentication, access, and data sharing among the stakeholders that include the healthcare givers and patients. Through the use of ZKPs, the proposed approach ensures that only the right people can prove the authenticity of the health data without revealing the data hence reducing on the risk of data leakage and other related issues. COVERY is specifically designed to have a low computational overhead for BAN devices by utilizing the ZKP technique. In this case, following a discussion of the proposed scheme, the simulation and real-world mode of the scheme are carried out and analyzed to determine its effectiveness and feasibility. The BAN systems enhanced through the integration of ZKP are found to enhance the data privacy of a network, decrease the attack angles and also ensure faster transfer of data securely in a healthcare network. This paper discusses how ZKPs can be adopted as a revolutionary solution for achieving privacy-preserving solutions in healthcare.
Biagio Boi, Franco Cirillo, Marco De Santis, Christian Esposito
Digital health services for disease diagnosis, followup, and patient empowerment manage data that belongs to a special class of personal information, according to the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). For this reason, user authentication and access control are among the key security measures suggested for their protection. However, in the medical context, it is crucial to balance security and privacy support with timeliness and ease of access, which requires innovative solutions. This manuscript introduces an innovative approach leveraging Soulbound Tokens (SBTs) and Zero-Knowledge Proofs (ZKPs), particularly zk-SNARKs, to provide a privacy-aware mechanism for patient authentication in the medical domain. SBTs are utilized within an Attribute-Based Access Control (ABAC) model, ensuring that only eligible patients can access specific medical treatments. In a treatment-specific model, an SBT is issued for each diagnosis, allowing precise control but increasing management complexity. Alternatively, in a diagnosis-categorybased model, SBTs are grouped by diagnostic categories. This reduces the number of tokens and optimizes the space in the patient's wallet but sacrifices some precision in the information. Results demonstrate the timeliness of the proposed approach, with an average time of 6.82s for the release of an SBT and a maximum on-chain verification time of 15.04ms, showcasing their future adoption in a real-time environment, such as the medical context.
Munir Hussain, Amjad Mehmood, Muhammad Altaf Khan, Jaime Lloret · 5 authors
The recent developments in telecommunication technologies and monitoring devices have brought many changes in modern electronic healthcare systems (EHSs) by improving quality and decreasing healthcare expenses. Despite the benefits, they have privacy and security issues because the communication between patients and service providers takes place generally over public channels. Several user authentication protocols using distributed ledger technology (DLT) have recently been proposed to address these issues in EHSs. However, many are still vulnerable to a single point of failure (SPoF), privacy, and security attacks. Besides, they suffered from high communication and computational costs. Therefore, in this paper, we proposed a user authentication protocol using DLT to avoid these issues. A Burrows-Abadi-Needham (BAN) logic proof method has been used to check the security of the proposed protocol and ensure it achieves the desired security goals. In addition, an informal security analysis has been conducted to verify its important security requirements. A formal security analysis has been performed via the Automated Validation of Internet Security Protocols and Applications (AVISPA) tool and Real-or-Random (ROR) model for further security strength. The results demonstrate that the proposed user authentication protocol is SAFE against all types of Man-in-the-Middle (MitM) attacks, impersonation, replay, and forgery attacks . Finally, performance analysis has been performed and results show that it achieves better performance by consuming 29.63 % and 13.21 % less communication and computational overheads as compared to existing related user authentication protocols. The security and performance analysis make it a more appropriate choice for the EHSs.
Advances in Web 3.0 technologies, such as blockchain and AI, are increasing demand for stronger authentication solutions. This study introduces a decentralized digital passport system based on blockchain and Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs). The method converts user identity data into hashed images, combines them, and stores them in distributed storage. A smart contract then registers the image address and user details as an NFT on the blockchain, forming a secure digital passport. This method enhances security, transparency, and decentralized data management. NFT-based digital passports can significantly improve authentication efficiency and security, even with repeated verification, while simplifying access to systems requiring authentication.
Advanced Steganography and Watermarking Techniques
Stablecoins, a type of cryptocurrency pegged to another asset to maintain a stable price, have become an important part of the cryptocurrency ecosystem. Prior studies have primarily focused on examining the security of stablecoins from technical and theoretical perspectives, with limited investigation into users' risk perceptions and security behaviors in stablecoin practices. To address this research gap, we conducted a mixed-method study that included constructing a stablecoin interaction framework based on the literature, which informed the design of our interview protocol, semi-structured interviews (n=21), and Reddit data analysis (9,326 posts). We found that participants see stable value and regulatory compliance as key security advantages of stablecoins over other cryptocurrencies. However, participants also raised concerns about centralization risks in fiat-backed stablecoins, perceived challenges in crypto-backed stablecoins due to limited reliance on fully automated execution, and confusion regarding the complex mechanisms of algorithmic stablecoins. We proposed improving user education and optimizing mechanisms to address these concerns and promote the safer use of stablecoins.
Objective: The combination of 5G connectivity and edge computing known as 5G Edge, lifts the limitations of the Internet of Medical Things (IoMT) and enables a plethora of authentic healthcare services, including access to medical information and diagnosis. Additionally, there is a chance that malicious insiders using the 5G Edge platform could compromise the security and confidentiality of IoMT data. As a result, end users cannot trust 5G Edge data. Materials and methods: This paper imagines a new hierarchical blockchain edge of things (HBEoT) architecture that would facilitate healthcare applications managed by blockchain at the network edge. Additionally, the article delves into how HBEoT can offer security services such as authenticating users, protecting data, detecting attacks, and managing trust. First, the consensus method PoS generates a block for healthcare data, and its hash values are kept in the blockchain. The Zero Knowledge Proof (ZKP) protocol stores secret information in the blockchain, authenticating healthcare systems for enhanced privacy and security. Results: To ensure immutable data storage, the suggested architecture incorporates 5G Edge servers into a blockchain platform. It prevents unauthorised users from accessing healthcare services by acting as an anonymous authenticator. We assessing the proposed methods efficiency in terms of latency, throughput, communication cost, energy consumption cost and the validation between ZKP prover and verifier. Conclusion: We conduct multiple experiments to evaluate the effectiveness of the suggested framework. To further investigate the quality measures, such as authenticate latency, throughput rate was examined. To fulfil the requirements for a 5G-enabled healthcare system, the research shows that the suggested HBEoT-ZKP performs a decrease in latency of around 1.16 s and an improvement in throughput of approximately 339 tps. Communication and energy cost is evaluated and compared with other conventional methods.
Counterfeiting in footwear a very big issue in the industry. This is a prevalent problem in sneakers due to the popularity and rarity of these footwear, this practice undermines consumer trust and brand reputation. In response, this blockchain-based sneaker authentication system proposes to solve this problem by using technologies such as decentralization and QR Codes embedded in sneakers to ensure that each step of the process from manufacturer to consumer is transparent and open. Manufacturers use the Ethereum blockchain to add sellers and their product. Each serial number of their products are mapped to a seller which then, using this secure platform can make a sale and map each pair of shoes to a consumer. This project utilizes advanced authentication algorithms, signature validation and Solidity contracts to enhance the system&s;s integrity. This proof of concept aims to instill confidence among consumers and the stakeholders (sellers, manufacturers) by identifying counterfeit products.
The Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) seeks to improve smart factory productivity by leveraging automation and scalability. For automation in industry, optimization, collaboration and protection, and scalability, the IoTs paradigm, technology for communication and information, and intelligent systems are integrated as a single organism. This article presents a blockchain-assisted safe data-sharing mechanism that provides security requirements in the industry using IoT. End-to-end authentication is developed based on the blockchain's reputation, and the smart contract is used to validate nodes' security measures. Through integrity verification and categorization in node terminals and industry, the blockchain paradigm manages data collection and dissemination. An efficient proof of authentication (PoAh) consensus mechanism is created using the blockchain network to build a collaborative network to preserve logs and verification data in the industrial IoT. It accomplishes trustworthy authentication and endpoint activity tracing, and edge computing is used in blockchain nodes to offer device authentication processes that utilize smart contracts and PoAh. According to an experimental study, the proposed architecture lowers the authentication time and obtains a high response rate. The proposed system's service time shows the efficiency of PoAh-based blockchain architecture for industrial IoT compared with existing works. Finally, we evaluated various block sizes to ensure an efficient transaction rate. The outcomes demonstrate the practicality of the suggested and put-into-practice architecture, distinguished by enhanced data audibility, device data ownership, security, and privacy while utilizing decentralized storage.
Account-based blockchain anonymous systems use non-interactive zero-knowledge proof schemes to protect user privacy but suffer from limited functionality and vulnerability to security attacks. This paper addresses these issues by proposing an optimized scheme that improves multi-signature authentication and enhances system security. We designed and implemented the first multi-signature authentication mechanism for account-based blockchain anonymous systems, supporting secure zero-knowledge operations such as deposits, withdrawals, transfers, and payments. Additionally, we enhanced security by upgrading the zk-SNARK proof scheme to SE-SNARK, significantly increasing the system’s resistance to attacks. Experimental results show that our approach improves security, flexibility, and overall system practicality without compromising efficiency.
Advanced Steganography and Watermarking Techniques
Alexander Plotkin, E. Kuznetsov, K. Starodubov, Yuri Gromov
The paper considers the solution of the problem of ensuring the resistance of key infrastructure in distributed registry systems to some destructive influences with the help of multi-factor authentication. Potentially possible destructive influences depending on defects in authentication systems, in particular on network nodes, are presented. Possible methods of providing resistance against such destructive influences are analyzed.
Muhammad Jawad, Mahmood A. Al-Shareeda, Omar Yawez Mustafa Mustafa, Mohammed Amin Almaiah · 5 authors
Analysis of repeated attack signatures is important because of the rapid evolution of the Social Internet of Vehicles (SIoV). However, threats such as replay attacks, session hijacking, and key reuse make secure communication between vehicles, roadside units (RSUs), and the fog node difficult. Traditional models for authentication are limited by computational overhead and lack quick key revocation. In response to these challenges, we propose a hybrid cryptographic authentication scheme that combines a Zero-Knowledge Proof (ZKP) with AES-GCM encryption. Our protocol implements a dynamic key revocation mechanism to avoid rogue and session key migration, minimizing re-authentication delay. Security analysis in the Real-Oracle Random (ROR) model shows that it is not vulnerable to impersonation or replay attacks. Evaluations demonstrate decreases of 58% in authentication latency while achieving 45% and 72% improvements in communication and computation efficiency, respectively. Our approach is also scalable and secure, providing SIoV with higher reliability for automotive applications in the vehicular networks of the future.