Improving WebRTC Security via Blockchain Based Smart Contracts

Abstract

WebRTC (Web Real-Time Communication) is one of the most popular technologies that provide the infrastructure for real-time data communications. Many applications used in military and civilian life depend on WebRTC technology directly or indirectly in the background. Due to its wide area of applications, the security of WebRTC communications is of great importance. In this paper, we improve the existing security infrastructure of WebRTC. The proposed solution provides a real-time communication infrastructure between peers on the network by making use of quite new and popular blockchain and smart contract technologies. Within the scope of the paper, a web-based application with video calling feature demonstrating blockchain interactions and suggested security enhancements have been developed. In the application, operations such as adding, updating, and authorizing users can be performed on the smart contract deployed on the live Ethereum network. Based on the principle of immutability of blockchains, users on the smart contract are mapped to the peers (nodes) in the WebRTC communication to be established and used in the identity verification process. Consequently, this paper proposes a secure identity verification method that could be used by real-time WebRTC communication peers to verify each other on the blockchain. The proposed solution is shown to resilient against man-in-the-middle attacks.