Digital Identity Management Systems Research Articles

Risky identities: Digital identity challenges for stateless Rohingya in first asylum states

This article presents a case study of the Tracking Refugees Information System (TRIS) that has been introduced in Malaysia for undocumented migrants and refugees, including the large Rohingya population being hosted in the country. It argues that the TRIS digital identity management system for Rohingya and other refugees in Malaysia in this period potentially shifts these groups from the protection of UNHCR to a new national surveillance project and fundamentally changes their status. The article highlights possible risks and concerns attached to such a digital ID system, and provides a contextual history of the evolution of dispossession of the Rohingya of identity documents in their own homeland as well as issues that have emerged concerning digital identity issuance in other asylum states.

Preliminaries in automated red teaming in hardening digital identity management systems

Preliminaries in automated red teaming in hardening digital identity management systems

PT-SSIM: A Proactive, Trustworthy Self-Sovereign Identity Management System

Digital Identity Management (DIM) systems have become challenging, especially given the current progression in ubiquitous environments enclosing cooperative Internet of Things (IoT) devices, individuals, and organizations. Self-Sovereign Identity (SSI) has recently surfaced to manifest the notion of decentralized DIMs enlivened by users autonomy. This paper presents a proactive, trustworthy solution for managing digital users data and identity information without risking its integrity, security, privacy, and confidentiality. Accordingly, we propose a decentralized SSI-enabled cloud storage model that enables secure access control and frequent data integrity checking mechanism. The presented model ensures the resiliency of SSI-enabled operations, including users registration, data identification, external information distribution, integrity checking operations, identity information authentication and verification, and decentralized external and shareable operations.

A Multi-Round Zero Knowledge Proof Algorithm for Secure IoT and Blockchain Environments

Presented herein is a novel algorithm for multi-round, zero-knowledge proof (ZKP), devised specifically for authenticating factorisation proofs within a variety of cryptographic applications. This advanced algorithm, while maintaining computational complexity within acceptable bounds, offers a secure and proficient solution. The functionality of the algorithm is marked by multiple rounds of interaction between the Prover and Verifier. Initially, the Prover generates a random value and calculates a commitment. Subsequently, the Verifier issues a random challenge, eliciting a computed response from the Prover. To validate the proof, the Verifier verifies the equality of the commitment and the computed response. Efficaciousness of the proposed multi-round ZKP algorithm is demonstrated across diverse input sizes and parameters. Results indicate a success rate exceeding 90% on average, showcasing the robustness of the method. The recurring interaction between the Verifier and Prover enhances the Prover's authentication, thereby improving the algorithm’s reliability. Implementation of the algorithm, achievable through standard cryptographic tools and protocols, can fortify the security of multiple cryptographic applications. A significant application can be found in Digital Identity Management Systems (DIMS). Currently, these systems are vulnerable to a myriad of threats, including identity spoofing, data breaches, and internal security risks. The application of the ZKP algorithm can simultaneously augment security and withhold sensitive information, potentially transforming the DIMS security landscape. Future research may focus on improving the efficiency and scalability of the multi-round ZKP algorithm. There also remains a vast potential for exploring additional applications of this technique within various cryptographic domains.

Towards an Improved Taxonomy of Attacks Related to Digital Identities and Identity Management Systems

Digital transformation with the adoption of cloud technologies, outsourcing, and working-from-home possibilities permits flexibility for organizations and persons. At the same time, it makes it more difficult to secure the IT infrastructure as the IT team needs to keep track of who is accessing what data from where and when on which device. With these changes, identity management as a key element of security becomes more important. Identity management relates to the technologies and policies for the identification, authentication, and authorization of users (humans and devices) in computer networks. Due to the diversity of identity management (i.e., models, protocols, and implementations), different requirements, problems, and attack vectors need to be taken into account. In order to secure identity management systems with their identities, a systematic approach is required. In this article, we propose the improved framework Taxonomy for Identity Management related to Attacks (TaxIdMA). The purpose of TaxIdMA is to classify existing attacks, attack vectors, and vulnerabilities associated with system identities, identity management systems, and end-user identities. In addition, the background of these attacks can be described in a structured and systematic way. The taxonomy is applied to the Internet of Things and self-sovereign identities. It is enhanced by a description language for threat intelligence sharing. Last but not least, TaxIdMA is evaluated and improved based on expert interviews, statistics, and discussions. This step enables broader applicability and level of detail at the same time. The combination of TaxIdMA, which allows a structured way to outline attacks and is applicable to different scenarios, and a description language for threat intelligence helps to improve the security identity management systems and processes.

Digital Identity Verification and Management System of Blockchain-Based Verifiable Certificate with the Privacy Protection of Identity and Behavior

Due to the advantages in self-sovereignty identity management and scalability of blockchain, digital identity verification and management systems (DIVMS) of blockchain-based verifiable certificates (VC) are getting more and more attention. However, user privacy in the systems’ traditional architectures cannot be guaranteed. In this paper, the zero-knowledge succinct noninteractive arguments of knowledge (zkSNARKs) referred to as Groth16 are introduced in order to implement privacy protection of the user’s identity and behavior of DIVMS of blockchain-based VC. In the proposed architecture, the malleability attack of Groth16 is considered, and verifications of zero-knowledge proof (ZKP) and the digital signature of an identity provider (IDP) attached to VC and the status management of VC are implemented on the smart contracts of the blockchain to overcome single point failure. Furthermore, a prototype system is designed to verify the proposed architecture’s capability in privacy protection and to evaluate its performances in cost and throughput. Finally, the security of the proposed architecture is discussed, and its comparisons are conducted with those existing blockchain-based DIVMSs, especially those systems using Groth16 of zkSNARKs to improve the privacy of user. All results mentioned above have shown that the proposed system is efficient and safe, and it can improve the privacy of DIVMS of the blockchain based VC while avoiding single point failure.

Nigeria’s Digital Identification (ID) Management Program: Ethical, Legal and Socio-Cultural concerns

National digital identity management systems have gained traction as a critical tool for inclusion of citizens in the increasingly digitised public services. With the help of the World Bank, countries around the world are committing to building and promoting digital identification systems to improve development outcomes as part of the Identity for development initiative (ID4D). One of those countries is Nigeria, which is building a national ID management database for its over 100 million residents. However, there are privacy, security, human rights, ethics and socio-cultural implications associated with the design and scaling of such a system at a national level. Through a mixed method approach, this paper identifies some of these concerns and categorises which ones Nigerians are most worried about. It provides an empirically sound perspective around centralised national electronic identity (eID) management system, public trust and responsible data governance, and offers recommendations on enhancing privacy, security and trustworthiness of the digital infrastructure for identity management in Nigeria.

Examining Nigeria’s Digital Identity Project as Tool for Economic Inclusion and Regional Integration

Access to the digitised economy has an increased penetration across the spectrum of Africa's rural and urban population. In Nigeria, which is the context of this study, there is a long unsettling debate delineating citizens residing within any locality in Nigeria as 'indigenes' or 'settlers'. This is at variance with the concept of 'transnational citizenship', which confers rights to social inclusion in any individual's nation-state. Digital identity registration becomes imperative to preserve social order and broaden the lines of inclusion for access to social services and monitoring access to the digital economy. The National Identity Number (NIN) is the digital identity for Nigerian citizens and residents, which can be leveraged for economic digitisation and regional and continental integration efforts. The research methodology employs descriptive and explanatory analysis of national, regional and continental policy frameworks applicable to Nigeria's digital identity management systems. Boundaries of inclusion, transnational citizenship and the Westphalian Treaty of nation sovereignty form the theoretical underpinning of the study. This is used to present digital identity as a vital tool for socioeconomic inclusion, regional and continental integration. The case study of the Schengen Agreement as a successful integrative digital identity system fostering economic integration in Europe forms the basis of the recommendation. This calls for the ultimate use of digital identity to enhance international operable smart border practice, which would in turn guarantee border security while encouraging the desired free movement of persons and goods within the African continent

Blockchain and Self Sovereign Identity to Support Quality in the Food Supply Chain

This work presents how a digital identity management system can support food supply chains in guaranteeing the quality of the products marketed and the compliance of the several supply-chain’s nodes to standards and technical regulations. Specific goal of this work is to present a system that provides full visibility of process/food certifications, which nowadays are issued by accredited and approved certification bodies (issuers) and delivered and stored in paper version by the several participants (holders) of the supply chain. The system is designed and implemented by combining the latest most innovative and disruptive technologies in the market—Self Sovereign Identity system, Blockchain, and Inter Planetary File System. The crucial aspects that it aims to hit are the storage and access of food/process certifications, and the proper eligibility verification of these certifications exploiting the concepts of the Self Sovereign Identity-based models. The proposed system, realized by using standards that are WWW Consortium-compatible and the Ethereum Blockchain, ensures eligibility, transparency, and traceability of the certifications along a food supply chain, and could be an innovation model/idea that the companies that adopt the Open Innovation paradigm might want to pursue.

Modelling and Implementation of a Device Based Digital Identity Management System

Identity management concerns transcends technical design issues as users disposition, awareness and attitude play a vital role in the effectiveness of such systems. A framework that supported some important digital identity management system security related features was presented in a previous study. In this current study, an attempt to empirically demonstrate the functioning of these features and to access how user’s awareness, disposition and attitude impact on the proper functioning of such systems was undertaken. To achieve these, a system was modeled and implemented using object oriented analysis and design method. The developed system empirically generates forensic evidence and an implicit mutual authentication scheme. The resulting system developed was tested for these features. The results obtained showed that the framework did provide for reliable forensic evidence generation and it also provided for the implementation of an implicit form of mutual authentication scheme. However, the outcome of a brief test conducted to gauge the reliability of this implicit mutual authentication scheme showed that the support provided was not very reliable based on these users’ factors (awareness, attitude and deposition)

Proposing a digital identity management framework: A mixed‐method approach

AbstractThis research aims to study the most critical elements of digital identity management to recognize the pattern and the requirements of their use and implementation. Further, an attempt is made to identify and prioritize the criteria and their relevant indicators of digital identity management in the form of a comprehensive framework. To this end a fuzzy multicriteria decision‐making approach was utilized. The framework focuses on a comprehensive perspective to consider digital identity and deals with compiling strategies and operational patterns based on the defined priorities. This applied research with a fundamental approach has a descriptive‐explanatory method as well. Through an in depth‐review of the extant literature and designing an instrument as well as semi‐structure interview the necessary data were collected. The research population consists of 10 experts. By reviewing the theoretical literature of the research, effective factors were identified and screened by the Fuzzy Delphi method leading to six main factors and 31 subfactors. Then, the collected data were analyzed through a hybrid technique known as FDANP (Fuzzy DEMATEL‐ANP) to determine the interactions between the factors and the subfactors and to weigh and prioritize them. The obtained results revealed that “strategic planning” is the most influential factor in digital identity management. Also, the subfactors namely “The use of the maturity model of digital identity management,” “commitment to the whole organization,” “integrity of digital identity management system with other systems,” “integrity of digital identity management program,” and “integrity of the two dimensions of identity management and access management” were ranked as the most influential subfactors of “strategic planning,” respectively. “Access management” was the most permeable factor in digital identity management. It means that this factor is the main problem and could be solved with the help of the influential factors. In addition, subfactors: “Access control to all resources only through the digital identity management system,” “Solution for access management of premium accounts,” “Multi‐factor authentication support,” “Access policy to all resources and information,” and “Determination of the manner of the user access to resources outside the organization” were ranked as the most permeable subfactors.

A zero-knowledge-proof-based digital identity management scheme in blockchain

The traditional centralized digital identity management system (DIMS) has been subject to threats such as fragmented identity, single point of failure, internal attacks and privacy leakage. Emerging blockchain technology allows DIMSs to be deployed in it, which largely alleviates the problems caused by the centralized third party, but its inherent transparency and lack of privacy pose a huge challenge to DIMSs. In this regard, we leverage the smart contracts and zero-knowledge proof (ZKP) algorithms to improve the existing claim identity model in blockchain to realize the identity unlinkability, effectively avoiding the exposure of the ownership of attributes. Furthermore, we implement a system prototype named BZDIMS that includes a challenge-response protocol, which allows users to selectively disclose their ownership of attributes to service providers to protect users’ behavior privacy. Performance evaluation and security analysis show that our scheme achieves effective attribute privacy protection and a wider application scope compared with the prior model.

Forensically ready digital identity management systems, issues of digital identity life cycle and context of usage

Collecting necessary digital and network forensics to prove the identity of an individual who is responsible for a crime, or suspected of a malicious attack, or has used a device during an incident, with minimum doubt to the court or other legitimate organisations based on the digital forensic investigation model is one of the most important legal and security issues of digital identity management systems DIMSs. Without a good understanding and identification of the most important parameters of DIMS based on the digital forensic investigation model, it is not possible to do digital forensic investigation and provide required evidence. Therefore, the main goal of this paper is to identify and prioritise DIMS parameters by considering a user's digital identity lifecycle, the contexts of usage challenges, and constraints that should be considered in a digital forensic readiness model.

Forensically ready digital identity management systems, issues of digital identity life cycle and context of usage

Forensically ready digital identity management systems, issues of digital identity life cycle and context of usage

Identifying and Prioritizing Evaluation Criteria for User-Centric Digital Identity Management Systems

Identity Management systems are used for securing digital identity of users in reliable, automated and compatible way. Service providers employ identity management systems which are cost effective and scalable but cause poor usability for users. Identity management systems are user-centric applications which should be designed by considering users’ perspective. User centricity is a remarkable concept in identity management systems as it provides more powerful user control and privacy. This approach has been evolved from amending past paradigms. Thus, evaluation of digital identity management systems based on users’ point of view, is really important. The main objective of this paper is to identify the appropriateness of the criteria used in evaluation of user-centric digital identity management systems. These criteria are gathered from the literature and then categorized into four groups for the first time in this work to examine the importance of each parameter. In this approach, several interviews were performed as a qualitative research method and two questionnaires have been filled out by forty six users who were involved with identity management systems. Since the answers are perception based data the most important criteria in each category are assessed by using fuzzy method. This research found that the most important criteria are related to security category. The results of this research can provide valuable information for managers and decision makers of hosting companies as well as system designers to adapt and develop appropriate user-centric digital identity management systems.

Digital identity: Transforming GCC economies

Governments and businesses alike are coming to understand that national and global economies should use the Internet as a medium for innovation and economic growth. A critical component that has been left to service providers to establish and manage is that of digital identities of online clients and customers. Lack of regulation and effective methods of management has resulted in greater concerns over privacy, security, and productivity in online environments, thus hindering the development and use of the full potential of the Internet. This paper attempts to explore the role of a government initiated digital identity management system in supporting the creation of a stronger digital economy. The author provides an overview of the identity management infrastructure development initiatives in Gulf Cooperation Council countries and briefly examines their potential to revolutionize and transform existing economic models. The author argues that the new smart identity cards produced in these countries may serve as secure tokens that connect digital and physical identity, create trustworthy environments, and strengthen confidence in online transactions critical to the growth of the digital economy.

Framework for a secure digital identity management system

This study evaluated the existing architectural framework supporting digital identity management systems applications design from the perspective of the rising incidence of sophisticated network attack mechanisms against these systems. The study focused on man-in-the-middle related network attacks vulnerabilities and the inability of these subsisting frameworks to support some other desirable security related features of mutual authentication and ample forensic evidence generation. The study adapted one of the subsisting frameworks to leverage global system of mobile communication (GSM) networks security features. A novel digital identity management system was then modelled and implemented on this adapted framework and an empirical testing and evaluation of this novel system was conducted to gauge how well the problems articulated were addressed. The results achieved demonstrated the adapted framework security against man-in-the-middle network credentials sniffing attacks, support for mutual authentication mechanism implementation and reliable forensic evidence generation.

An Efficient Windows Cardspace identity Management Technique in Cloud Computing

Cloud computing provides the shared infrastructure to the user this lead to the privacy and security violation. Privacy is regarding to the user’s sensitive information that resides onto the cloud, unauthorized secondary usage of the data. Windows Cardspace is a digital identity management system that deals with the privacy. It is managed the digital identities inform of Security Token. This paper described the shortcoming of the windows Cardspace that direct to a privacy violation. First issue is reliance on the single layer authentication, second is relying on service provider judgment and third is token storage on cloud. This proposed work will overcome the limitation of the windows cardspace identity management solution. Keyword: windows Cardspace

The Technical Solution Exploring of Digital Identity Centralized Security Management for Large Enterprise Organizations’ Employees

In order to integrate various digital identity management systems in the context of large enterprise organizations which have a variety of digital identity management system, this article defines the digital identity management strategy, proposes a digital identity centralized management platform architecture and highlighted several key technical considerations. The security level of access to network resources could be increased and the incidents of identity fraud and economic losses could be reduced through centralized management of digital identity’s life cycle and usage. Centralized digital identity management can not only increase the information management maturity but also support organizations’ information technology development.

Global mobility and security

Globalisation and the development of the information society introduce new challenges but also new opportunities with respect to the mobility of people, goods, services and capital. Such mobility includes the movement of bodies (people), transactions (things that a person does either as physical actions or as captured in data), and artefacts (things associated with the individual). The importance of digital identity and identity management systems is increasing in the global and networked context. Technologies like biometrics are implemented to control the movement of people in order to prevent security threats, illegal immigration, and criminal and terror attacks.