An efficient blockchain-based authentication scheme with transferability

Abstract

In the development of web applications, the rapid advancement of Internet technologies has brought unprecedented opportunities and increased the demand for user authentication schemes. Before the emergence of blockchain technology, establishing trust between two unfamiliar entities relied on a trusted third party for identity verification. However, the failure or malicious behavior of such a trusted third party could undermine such authentication schemes (e.g., single points of failure, credential leaks). A secure authorization system is another requirement of user authentication schemes, as users must authorize other entities to act on their behalf in some situations. If the transfer of authentication permissions is not adequately restricted, security risks such as unauthorized transfer of permissions to entities may occur. Some research has proposed blockchain-based decentralized user authentication solutions to address these risks and enhance availability and auditability. However, as we know, most proposed schemes that allow users to transfer authentication permissions to other entities require significant gas consumption when deployed and triggered in smart contracts. To address this issue, we proposed an authentication scheme with transferability solely based on hash functions. By combining one-time passwords with Hashcash, the scheme can limit the number of times permissions can be transferred while ensuring security. Furthermore, due to its reliance solely on hash functions, our proposed authentication scheme has an absolute advantage regarding computational complexity and gas consumption in smart contracts. Additionally, we have deployed smart contracts on the Goerli test network and demonstrated the practicality and efficiency of this authentication scheme.