Black-Box Accountable Authority Identity-Based Revocation System

Provably secure identity-based authenticated key agreement protocols with malicious private key generators

In Identity-Based Encryption (IBE) system, the Private Key Generator (PKG) holds the master secret key and is responsible for generating private keys for the users. This incurs the key-escrow problem, i.e. the PKG can decrypt any user' any ciphertexts without any possible detection. Also, compromising the master secret key will enable an adversary to do anything to the whole system, and having the master secret key be unavailable implies that new users cannot obtain private keys from the PKG, and existing users cannot get their private keys back from the PKG when they lost them. To address the key-escrow problem and protect the master secret key as much as possible with strong security and availability, distributed PKG protocols supporting threshold policy have been adopted in some IBE schemes. In this paper, we propose a distributed PKG protocol that supports the policy to be any monotonic access structures. Also, we propose the first distributed PKG protocol that supports the dynamic changes of the PKGs and the policy, while remaining the master secret key unchanged. The two protocols do not need any third party acting as a trusted dealer to present, and the master secret key should never be generated or resided in any one single site. The protocols are applicable to a generic IBE template, which covers many existing important IBE schemes. When applied to this generic type of IBE schemes, the two distributed PKG protocols do not affect the encryption and decryption algorithms, and only each user knows his own private key.

The rapid development of network technology has brought new challenges to data security. As the first gateway of a certain mobile internet system, access authentication is an essential step that guarantees the internal security of the network. However, there are some problems in traditional cryptosystem-based authentication mechanisms, such as certificate management problem and centralized key escrow problem. Centralized storage of user information is restricted by the server, the security of the server is not within the user’s control, the stability of the server cannot be guaranteed, and personal privacy on the server may be leaked. In this paper, we focus on the private key escrow problem caused by the Private Key Generator (PKG) in Identity-Based Cryptosystems (IBC) mechanism and propose a Blockchain-assisted user public-private key generation scheme (BAKG) which introduces the blockchain to improve the robustness and reliability of key management. In BAKG, the user’s private key is determined by itself through combining the partial private keys from different PKGs, which prevents the risk of private key exposure caused by a single PKG. Meanwhile, based on the theory of the Combined Public Key (CPK) algorithm, we have designed a feasible blockchain-based key generation logic and developed a prototype authentication system based on the above concept. We further analyze the security of BAKG and the analytical results show that BAKG can meet various security requirements. In addition, according to the performance evaluation results, BAKG has good performance in both read/write consensus and different key length calculations, which means it has good potential for lightweight authentication applications.KeywordsBlockchainAuthenticationIdentity-Based CryptosystemsCombine public key

Since computer systems and communication become each time more pervasive, information security takes attention, requiring guarantees for data authentication, integrity and confidentiality. Pervasive communication and computer systems intend to provide access to information and services anytime and anywhere, demanding cryptographic systems more practical and that consider the characteristics of emerging network paradigms, such as wireless communication, device constraints and mobility. Identity-Based Cryptography (IBC) is an asymmetric key cryptographic technology that employs as user’s public key any unique information related to the identity of the user. IBC efficiently manages keying material and provides an easy way to issue a pair of keys applying user information. However, it assumes the existence of a Trusted Third Party (TTP), called Private Key Generator (PKG), which is responsible for generating the corresponding user private key. Relying on a TTP and using an identity as the base of the scheme result in different weaknesses on the system, as the inherent key escrow problem. This chapter investigates those weaknesses, and it points out the stat-of-the-art of proposed solutions to avoid them. This chapter also provides an overview of Identity-Based Encryption (IBE), Identity-Based Signature (IBS) and Identity-Based Key Agreement (IBKA), emphasizing IBE due to being an open problem for many years. This chapter concludes highlighting IBC applications and future trends.

Hierarchical Identity-Based Encryption (HIBE) is a generalization of Identity-Based Encryption (IBE) that mirrors an organizational hierarchy, however, the residual key escrow problem has still remained. This paper introduces a new scheme, based on the security notion of anonymous ciphertext indistinguishability against key generation center (ACI-KGC) security proposed by Chow, to remove the inherent key escrow problem. The scheme employs multiple Identity Certification Authorities (ICAs) which can ensure that the Private Key Generators (PKGs) distribute private key without knowing the list of user’s identity information, so as to prevent malicious PKGs from decrypting message on behalf of user or maliciously make user’s private key public. Security analysis shows that the scheme can solve the key escrow with keeping the high-efficiency and security of HIBE system. In contrast to Chen’s T-HIBE and Chow’s scheme, to generating the user’s private key, our scheme does not require the multiple KPAs or the complex interactive protocol which take too much extra computation costs. And comparing with GS-HIBE, our scheme focuses on solving the key escrow problem with outstanding performance and security of HIBE system.

In recent years, secure communication and privacy‐preserving are gaining popularity because of the advent of wireless network. Certificateless cryptography (CLC) and identity‐based cryptography (IBC) have already been widely applied in the area of wireless network. Hence, to achieve secure communication from CLC to IBC, we present a heterogeneous signcryption scheme that enables a sender in the CLC to transmit a message to multi‐receiver in the IBC. Our scheme has no restrictions on the system parameters and master keys; private key generator and key generating center generate their own system parameters and master key for the IBC users and the CLC user, separately. Considering privacy‐preserving in heterogeneous communication, we show that our scheme can realize the anonymity of all receivers. Compared with other schemes, our scheme has more advantages, such as public verification and decryption fairness, which are attractive for wireless network applications. Moreover, our scheme has the indistinguishability against adaptive chosen ciphertext attacks, the existential unforgeability against adaptive chosen messages attacks, and anonymous indistinguishability of encryptions under selective‐ID, chosen ciphertext attack in the random oracle model. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Recently, Chen et al. proposed an identity-based quantum signature scheme (IDQSS). Their scheme has the advantages of the classical identity-based signature (IDS) scheme. However, Chen et al.’s scheme cannot resist against the private key generator (PKG)’s forgery attack. On the other hand, in their scheme, many rounds of quantum swap tests have to be performed by the verifier during the signature verification phase. To improve the security and efficiency of the IDQSS, a new IDQSS is proposed. In our scheme, the private key of the signer is generated by PKG according to the signer’s identity, which is used as the corresponding public key. The signer generates a quantum signature with her private key and the secret parameters shared with the verifier. Anyone can verify the quantum signature with the identity of the signer. Our scheme overcomes the security drawback of Chen et al.’s scheme and inherits the merits of the classical IDS system. It has the security properties such as information-theoretical security, non-repudiation and unforgeability. At the same time, in our scheme, the verifier need not perform any quantum swap test. Therefore, our IDQSS is more secure and efficient.

Identity-based Cryptography (IBC) is an exciting alternative to public-key Cryptography (PKC), as it eliminates the need for certificate that is a major issue in PKC. However, IBC suffers from an additional limitation viz. the key escrow problem — that is — a user's private key is generated by the central trusted Key Generation Centre (KGC) — that being a single entity, lends itself to the security vulnerabilities in the cryptosystem. One of the prominent solutions proposed as Secure Key Issuing Protocol by Lee. et al. which uses a distributed protocol to generate the private key for user. However, this approach entails significant communications overhead. Hence, in this paper we have proposed an improved Identity based Secure Key Generation Protocol that gives the complete solution of key escrow problem, using clustering based approach. The proposed scheme involves less number of authorities in the computation of the public/private key pair and hence is more efficient. As we further analyze in the paper, our protocol also provides protection against the possible collusion attack in Lee's protocol. To the best of our knowledge, this is a simple, yet efficient and unique attempt to overcome the key escrow problem in IBCs.

The objective of the PKA encryption scheme is to complement, or replace, existing Public Key Infrastructures (PKI) [1]. In this scheme, the initialization step is based on the secure exchange of addressable cryptographic tables between the communicating parties. These tables are generated either with random numbers, or with arrays of addressable Physical Unclonable Function (PUFs). The subsequent communications between the parties can therefore occurs over untrusted channels, by exchanging dynamically generated public keys. Private keys are, generated independently with all communicating parties using their cryptographic tables, and the shared public keys. The private keys are combined with methods such as the Advanced Encryption Standard (AES) to encrypt and decrypt the communication between users. The generation of private keys is done without mathematical computations that are potentially vulnerable to quantum computers using algorithms such as the one developed by Shor [2]. PKA is fast and requires approximately 800 CPU clock cycles. We implemented, and tested the PKA dynamic key exchange scheme in legacy systems to secure PC-to-PC communication, and PC to smart card communication with AES.

Identity-based encryption algorithm is applied to cloud storage to protect data security and provide a flexible access control scheme. However, in the existing schemes, the private key generator (PKG) knows secret keys of all users, which means that the PKG can decrypt all ciphertexts. In this paper, we propose a secure identity-based proxy re-encryption scheme, in which the PKG only generates partial secret keys for users. This can ensure users’ data confidentiality and privacy security. Its security is based on the decision bilinear Diffie-Hellman (DBDH) assumption in the random oracle model. Besides, our scheme can resist collusion attacks and support user revocation. In addition, we compare our scheme with other existing schemes. The result demonstrates our scheme is comparable with other schemes in computation complexity.

Direct Anonymous Attestation (DAA) is a scheme that enables the remote authentication of a Trusted Platform Module (TPM) while preserving the user's privacy. A TPM can prove to a remote party that it is a valid TPM without revealing its identity and without linkability. In the DAA scheme, a TPM can be revoked only if the DAA private key in the hardware has been extracted and published widely so that verifiers obtain the corrupted private key. If the unlinkability requirement is relaxed, a TPM suspected of being compromised can be revoked even if the private key is not known. However, with the full unlinkability requirement intact, if a TPM has been compromised but its private key has not been distributed to verifiers, the TPM cannot be revoked. Furthermore, a TPM cannot be revoked from the issuer, if the TPM is found to be compromised after the DAA issuing has occurred. In this paper, we present a new DAA scheme called Enhanced Privacy ID (EPID) scheme that addresses the above limitations. While still providing unlinkability, our scheme provides a method to revoke a TPM even if the TPM private key is unknown. This expanded revocation property makes the scheme useful for other applications such as for driver's license. Our EPID scheme is efficient and secure in the same security model as DAA, i.e. in the random oracle model under the strong RSA assumption and the decisional Diffie-Hellman assumption.

Identity-based cryptosystems were introduced to overcome one of the main problems in public key encryption, the generation of public and private keys. In the identity-based cryptosystem, an identifier such as an e-mail address of a user can be used to generate public and private keys by a trusted third party. The trusted third party uses a system-wide master secret to provide private keys to a user. Identity-based cryptosystems can be constructed using the idea of pairings. This article discusses four different identity-based cryptosystems: the Boneh-Franklin scheme, the Cock's scheme, the Authenticated IBE scheme and the Hierarchical IBE scheme. This article also discusses the security notions considered for the identity-based cryptosystem. The security notions considered are: one-wayness, indistinguishability, semantic security and non-malleability. An architecture consisting of a public parameter server and private key generator for the implementation of the identity-based cryptosystems is also discussed.

Recently, the notion of the key-insulated public- key system has been suggested to protect the security of users' private keys. A general idea of this system is changing the user's private key along with the time, but the user's public key remains unchanged. In this paper, we propose a new identity (ID)-based key-insulated signature scheme from bilinear pairings. As compared with the recently proposed ID-based key-insulated signature schemes, our proposed scheme has better performance in the batch verifying phase. For security analysis, our scheme is a provably secure key-insulated signature scheme in the random oracle model and under the computational Diffie-Hellman assumption. Meanwhile, to demonstrate the additional advantage of a key-insulated signature, we present a novel application based on the proposed scheme, called full delegation ID-based proxy signature scheme with time restriction. To our best knowledge, no such a proxy signature scheme is proposed until now.

Due to the limited energy of underwater wireless sensor network (UwWSN) and the need to protect node location privacy, aggregate signature (AGGS) scheme which can batch verification signature is proposed to meet these requirements. Due to moving at high speed and the limited bandwidth of communication in vehicular ad hoc network (VaNET), certificateless aggregate signature (CTLAS) with the private key being generated by the signer itself and PKG (Private Key Generator) is proposed to solve the above problems. Recently, Yang et al. proposes a CTLAS scheme which can be applied into VaNET and Hua proposes an AGGS scheme which can be applied into UwWSN. This paper shows that Yang et al.'s CTLAS scheme and Hua's AGGS scheme both are not secure. In Yang et al.'s CTLAS scheme, an attacker can forge a signature assume that the attacker cannot know the masker key of PKG but the attacker can replace the public key of the signer. In Hua's AGGS scheme, a malicious node can forge a signature for any nodes after the malicious node obtains a temporary key. As an improvement, this paper also proposes an improved method for Yang et al.'s scheme and Hua's scheme respectively.

Currently, the pervasive cooperation of a group of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) has gained a lot of attention and use for its low price and widespread availability. For drones from different network domains to cooperate with each other, temporary Internet of Drones (IoD) is needed. The collaboration with drones requires frequent identity verification. However, owing to unreliable environment and weak connectivity of the IoD. Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) are weak in energy, computing, cross-domain and memory resources. It is very difficult to design an efficient and the complete authentication scheme without abundant computing and memory resources. The conventional authentication methods are not suitable for IoD, Public Key Infrastructure (PKI) needs online and high bandwidth resources, at the same time, the construction and operation and maintenance costs of certificate authority (CA) are very high; Identity-Based Cryptograph (IBC) using a lot of operational resources, is a “heavy” algorithm, and in different domains (private key distribution from different Private Key Generator (PKG)) is difficult to authenticate each other. This paper proposes a two-layer lightweight key management scheme based on Unified Multi-domain Identity (UMI), which implement cross-domain authentication, effectively reduce the computing and traffic brought by public key certificate verification which is especially suitable for UAVs network. Finally, through verification, the scheme has better performance and security than other schemes.KeywordsUnmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs)Key authenticationPublic-key cryptographyInternet of Drones (IoD)