Blockchain-based key management system in Named Data Networking: A survey

Abstract

The Named Data Networking is a popular future internet architecture designed around the content name. This data-centric network architecture sought to improve routing techniques, traffic management, network performance, and more. It also adopted a data-centric security paradigm to ensure content authenticity, confidentiality, integrity, and privacy. Several challenges need to be addressed to achieve such a comprehensive security goal. Innovative blockchain-based security solutions were widely used to address such challenges. Blockchain could offer a secure platform for advanced security features like decentralized identity, distributed trust management, and many more. The current trend is to use blockchain to secure key management operations in Named Data Networking. This survey aimed to identify key management challenges in Named Data Networking and how they were mitigated using blockchain. For this purpose, the survey comprehensively reviewed the existing blockchain-based key management systems for Named Data Networking. It summarized how these systems solve different key management problems using blockchain. It also performed a comparative analysis of these systems based on three references. Firstly, the systems were analyzed to investigate their conformance to the National Institute of Standards and Technology recommendations for secure key management. Secondly, the systems were examined concerning the Named Data Networking platform to reveal information about their key namespace and key object structure. Thirdly, the systems were analyzed based on the blockchain platform and compared regarding their functionality, performance, and security. The content stored in the blockchain was also examined to uncover the relationship between the key, key name, and blockchain. The survey concluded by identifying research gaps and opportunities for further research. This paper contributed to gaining knowledge about key management security challenges faced by Named Data Networking. It revealed how blockchain technology addressed these key management security challenges. It also identified blockchain features that can be adopted to secure key management operations further. The survey results provided a template to guide future research to secure key management in NDN with blockchain.