A Decentralized Dynamic PKI based on Blockchain

TY - GEN

T1 - A Decentralized Dynamic PKI based on Blockchain

AU - Toorani, Mohsen

AU - Gehrmann, Christian

PY - 2021/3/22

Y1 - 2021/3/22

N2 - The central role of the certificate authority (CA) in traditional public key infrastructure (PKI) makes it fragile and prone to compromises and operational failures. Maintaining CAs and revocation lists is demanding especially in loosely-connected and large systems. Log-based PKIs have been proposed as a remedy but they do not solve the problem effectively. We provide a general model and a solution for decentralized and dynamic PKI based on a blockchain and web of trust model where the traditional CA and digital certificates are removed and instead, everything is registered on the blockchain. Registration, revocation, and update of public keys are based on a consensus mechanism between a certain number of entities that are already part of the system. Any node which is part of the system can be an auditor and initiate the revocation procedure once it finds out malicious activities. Revocation lists are no longer required as any node can efficiently verify the public keys through witnesses.

AB - The central role of the certificate authority (CA) in traditional public key infrastructure (PKI) makes it fragile and prone to compromises and operational failures. Maintaining CAs and revocation lists is demanding especially in loosely-connected and large systems. Log-based PKIs have been proposed as a remedy but they do not solve the problem effectively. We provide a general model and a solution for decentralized and dynamic PKI based on a blockchain and web of trust model where the traditional CA and digital certificates are removed and instead, everything is registered on the blockchain. Registration, revocation, and update of public keys are based on a consensus mechanism between a certain number of entities that are already part of the system. Any node which is part of the system can be an auditor and initiate the revocation procedure once it finds out malicious activities. Revocation lists are no longer required as any node can efficiently verify the public keys through witnesses.

U2 - 10.1145/3412841.3442038

DO - 10.1145/3412841.3442038

M3 - Paper in conference proceeding

BT - Proceedings of the 36th ACM/SIGAPP Symposium On Applied Computing (SAC'21)

PB - Association for Computing Machinery (ACM)

T2 - The 36th ACM/SIGAPP Symposium on Applied Computing, SAC '21

Y2 - 22 March 2021 through 26 March 2021

ER -