Article: Enhanced bitcoin with two-factor authentication Journal: International Journal of Information and Computer Security (IJICS) 2021 Vol.16 No.3/4 pp.292 - 306 Abstract: Bitcoin transactions rely on digital signatures to prove the ownership of bitcoin. The private signing key of the bitcoin owner is the key component to enable a bitcoin transaction. If the signing key of a bitcoin is stolen, the thief who possesses the key can make a transaction of the bitcoin. In this paper, based on the distance-based encryption (DBE), we propose an enhanced version of bitcoin in order to protect the signing key. Our approach is based on our two-factor authentication, where the signing key cannot be retrieved without being identified via the password and biometric authentication scheme, and the user is only required to enter his password and fingerprint (or other biometric information such as a factual image) to retrieve the key. By doing this, we can effectively improve the bitcoin security and provide stronger authentication. An attractive feature of our scheme is that one of encryption schemes is asymmetric, in the sense that the decryption key (biometric information) is not stored in the device. We also provide the security model and proof to justify the security of our scheme. Inderscience Publishers - linking academia, business and industry through research

Title: Enhanced bitcoin with two-factor authentication

Authors: Fatemeh Rezaeibagha; Yi Mu; Ke Huang; Leyou Zhang

Addresses: SMART Infrastructure, University of Wollongong, Wollongong, NSW 2522, Australia ' Fujian Provincial Key Laboratory of Network Security and Cryptology, College of Mathematics and Informatics, Fujian Normal University, Fuzhou, China ' School of Computer Science and Engineering, University of Electronic Science and Technology of China, Chengdu, China ' School of Mathematics and Statistics, Xidian University, Xi'an 710126, China

Abstract: Bitcoin transactions rely on digital signatures to prove the ownership of bitcoin. The private signing key of the bitcoin owner is the key component to enable a bitcoin transaction. If the signing key of a bitcoin is stolen, the thief who possesses the key can make a transaction of the bitcoin. In this paper, based on the distance-based encryption (DBE), we propose an enhanced version of bitcoin in order to protect the signing key. Our approach is based on our two-factor authentication, where the signing key cannot be retrieved without being identified via the password and biometric authentication scheme, and the user is only required to enter his password and fingerprint (or other biometric information such as a factual image) to retrieve the key. By doing this, we can effectively improve the bitcoin security and provide stronger authentication. An attractive feature of our scheme is that one of encryption schemes is asymmetric, in the sense that the decryption key (biometric information) is not stored in the device. We also provide the security model and proof to justify the security of our scheme.

Keywords: authentication; encryption; bitcoin; blockchain.

DOI: 10.1504/IJICS.2021.118954

International Journal of Information and Computer Security, 2021 Vol.16 No.3/4, pp.292 - 306

Received: 06 Nov 2018
Accepted: 06 Jan 2019
Published online: 15 Nov 2021 *

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Title: Enhanced bitcoin with two-factor authentication

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