Blockchain-Based Identity Verification for Zero Trust Access in Kenyan University Student Portals

Kenyan universities increasingly rely on student portals for academic and administrative services, and the sensitive data these portals hold makes them attractive targets for cyberattacks. Zero Trust Architecture (ZTA) has been proposed as a more reliable security approach, yet empirical work on combining ZTA with blockchain-based identity verification in student portals is minimal, and the two are usually studied separately. This study analyzed how existing Kenyan university student portals handle identity validation and access control, then designed and evaluated a blockchain-based Zero Trust prototype for secure portal access. Using a Design Science Research Methodology, the prototype was implemented on Hyperledger Fabric and tested in five attack and usage scenarios, each run 10 times. An online questionnaire completed by 49 students of chartered universities showed that all relied on password-based authentication, 71.4% reported that their portal did not require multifactor authentication (MFA), 79.6% were never required to change their passwords, and 87.8% reported no re-verification on sensitive activities. In the simulated tests, the prototype recorded a true acceptance rate of 100%, a false acceptance rate of 0%, 100% ledger-chain integrity, and a composite effectiveness score of 100%; anomaly detection averaged 3.31 seconds in the summary results and 17.9 seconds on the live server. These results come from author-run simulations and a small purposive sample, so they demonstrate feasibility rather than effectiveness in the field. Universities should strengthen portal authentication with MFA and continuous verification, and blockchain-based identity merits evaluation in larger, independent tests.