BlockCAM: A Blockchain-Based Cross-Domain Authentication Model

Abstract

In a distributed network environment, companies and institutions have their own sharing resource. To prevent unauthorized users to access these shared resources, cross-domain authentication is necessary. For ensuring the safety and efficiency to access resources in different domain, we propose a blockchain-based cross-domain authentication model called BlockCAM and designed the cross-domain authentication protocol. BlockCAM employs consortium blockchain technology to construct a decentralized network with the root Certificate Authorities as the verification nodes. The hash values of the authorized certificates are stored in each block and the verification process only needs to compare whether the hash calculated by the certificate provided by the user is consistent with the hash stored in the blockchain. The authentication process omits the key encryption and decryption overhead. BlockCAM has the characteristics of decentralization, anonymity and temper-resistant. Analyses show that BlockCAM has the advantage over the existing public key infrastructure (PKI) cross-domain authentication schemes at efficiency.