Blockchain-based Anonymous Authentication Key Management for Mobile Edge Computing

A lightweight two-tier key authentication protocol based on blockchain is proposed to solve the edge server security and user privacy problems in Mobile Edge Computing (MEC). The protocol is based on blockchain technology and adopts a combination of elliptic curve cryptography and HMAC technology to deal with the authentication and key negotiation problems between the user and the edge. Considering the internal attack problem of the edge server, the key storage and computation in the protocol are transparent to the edge server and are done in the blockchain, and the efficient and secure management of the key is achieved through smart contracts. Experimental analysis shows that the protocol meets the basic security requirements, enhances the security of edge computing, and also outperforms other existing schemes in terms of efficiency. Therefore, it provides an efficient and feasible solution to the authentication problem in the MEC environment.