Emergency access control management via attribute based encrypted QR codes

Belguith, S; Gochhayat, SP; Conti, M; Russello, G

Abstract

In dynamic environments such as disaster management, mechanisms for the controlled override of access
restrictions, a.k.a. break-glass need to be supported. These access control mechanisms should ensure access to facilities, for example, an office building, in an emergency situation, without relying on the use of an online authentication server as connectivity might not be available.
In this paper, we propose a break-glass access control mechanism based on a novel use of QR codes, Shamir’s Secret Sharing
Scheme and Attribute Based Encryption. Our proposed solution
is such that a secret access key is split using Shamir’s secret
sharing scheme and encrypted using attribute based encryption,
then encoded in a QR code. Subsequently, emergency actors
scan the QR code and recover the individual secret key using
their attributes satisfying an access policy associated with the
ciphertext. The novelty of our solution lies in the fact that a
flexible access control is ensured only when a sufficient number
of authorized users collaborate to get access to a building without
requiring an online third party. In addition, the access secret key
is only decrypted by the authorized users thanks to the use of
an attribute based encryption scheme. Finally, we demonstrate
the feasibility and the efficiency of the solution by implementing
a prototype and analysing its performance.

Citation

Belguith, S., Gochhayat, S., Conti, M., & Russello, G. (2018, May). Emergency access control management via attribute based encrypted QR codes. Presented at IEEE Workshop on Security and Privacy in the Cloud (IEEE CNS 2018 workshop: SPC 2018), Beijing, China

• Presentation Conference Type: Other
• Conference Name: IEEE Workshop on Security and Privacy in the Cloud (IEEE CNS 2018 workshop: SPC 2018)
• Conference Location: Beijing, China
• Start Date: May 30, 2018
• End Date: Jun 1, 2018
• Online Publication Date: Aug 13, 2018
• Publication Date: Aug 13, 2018
• Deposit Date: May 20, 2019
• Journal: 2018 IEEE Conference on Communications and Network Security (CNS)
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1109/CNS.2018.8433186
• Publisher URL: https://doi.org/10.1109/CNS.2018.8433186
• Additional Information: Additional Information : Proceedings ISBN: 978-1-5386-4586-4; Event Type : Conference