Multi-Tier Security Framework for Blockchain-enabled Supply Chain Systems

Due to reliance on centralized systems, modern supply chain (SC) systems face significant challenges in ensuring integrity, confidentiality, and compliance. Blockchain can transform SC systems by providing numerous benefits, including enhanced security, transparency, and decentralization. However, allowing legitimate access to the SC system becomes crucial due to a broader attack space and many distributed stakeholders involved in the SC ecosystem. This work proposes a blockchain-based multi-tier security framework designed to address critical security challenges in SC systems and overcome the limitations of existing approaches. The framework focuses on three security areas: (a) stakeholder registration, (b) mutual authentication, and (c) access control. In the first tier, the stakeholders register with the SC system securely using Elliptic Curve Cryptography, allowing only verified participants to join the SC system. In the second tier, the mutual authentication process confirms and validates the identities of the stakeholders whenever they want to interact with the SC system. The third tier ensures that stakeholders must have permission to access the supply chain operation. For this purpose, an access control mechanism assigns permissions to the stakeholders based on their roles to ensure only authorized stakeholders are allowed to perform a supply chain operation. The multi-tier security security framework for the SC ecosystem was validated using an Ethereum test network. The results depict the effectiveness of the proposed framework in terms of throughput, latency and scalability analysis.