Next Generation Authentication Using a Blockchain-Distributed Secure Ledger

Abstract: The increasing demand for digital services has created an insatiable demand for authentication systems that are trustworthy, safe, and tamper-proof. Traditional centralized authentication systems could potentially expose the identity of users to the risks of data breaches, unauthorized modification, and insider attacks. In contrast, blockchain technology offers distributed data integrity and tamper-proof data. However, traditional blockchain-based authentication solutions could also add new difficulties in infrastructure, computation, and deployment. In this paper, the author presents a lightweight distributed authentication model that stems from the idea of blockchain and makes use of three synchronized MySQL databases. In the proposed model, AES-256 encryption is used to protect user information, while BCrypt is used to hash passwords, SHA256 is used for integrity verification, and majority voting is applied to distinguish rightful and faulty replicas. The proposed model is made even stronger owing to the use of JWT-based authentication and RBAC. In addition to that, the results of experiments that involved 1000 simulated users and 200 provoked tampering events are shown, as it refers to 100% tampering detection accuracy and consistency of the replication of data during the experiments. In addition to that, an average recovery time for resolving corrupted records proved to

Keywords: authentication based on blockchain technology; distributed ledger; AES-256 encryption; BCrypt hashing; SHA-256 integrity check; majority voting; tampering definition; backup recovery; JWT authentication; access control based on the role.