Application Level Authentication for Ethereum Private Blockchain Atomic Crosschain Transactions

TL;DR

This paper introduces an application-level authentication strategy for Ethereum private blockchains, enabling secure, atomic cross-chain transactions by verifying the origin blockchain and account details.

Contribution

It presents a novel method to restrict cross-chain contract calls by validating originating blockchain ID, source blockchain ID, and account, enhancing security in crosschain interactions.

Findings

Validated crosschain call origin with blockchain and account identifiers

Ensured atomicity and security in crosschain transactions

Enhanced control over cross-contract call permissions

Abstract

Atomic Crosschain Transaction technology allows composable programming across private Ethereum blockchains. It allows for inter-contract and inter-blockchain function calls that are both synchronous and atomic: if one part fails, the whole call graph of function calls is rolled back. Traditional Ethereum contract functions can limit which accounts can call them by specialised application program logic. This is important as it allows application developers to specify which callers can execute functions that update contract state. In this paper we introduce the strategy required to restrict which contracts on one blockchain can call a function in a contract that is deployed on another blockchain. We show that validating the Originating Blockchain Id (the blockchain the crosschain function call started on), From Blockchain Id, and From Account provides contracts with certainty that a function call came from a specific contract on a specific blockchain.