Symmetric cryptographic schemes such as RSA and ECDSA (Elliptic Curve Digital Signature Algorithm), used for digital signatures in protocols like TLS, DTLS, and secure messaging, are computationally intensive. This makes them unsuitable for constrained environments, such as the Internet of Things (IoT) and the Internet of Vehicles (IoV). This study introduces a blockchain-based framework that utilizes the Ethereum network to store and verify public keys associated with digital certificates. By replacing signature decryption with blockchain-based public key verification, the solution significantly reduces cryptographic overhead and latency in V2V messages. It supports various certificate formats, including Public Key Infrastructure (PKI)/Certificate Authority (CA) certificates such as X.509 and L-ECQV, as well as self-signed certificates. Applications include secure communication protocols like Datagram Transport Layer Security (DTLS)/Transport Layer Security (TLS), V2V mutual authentication in V2X messaging, and lightweight certificate management within IoT ecosystems. Empirical results show that the DTLS handshake with this scheme is reduced from 12 s to less than 6 s. Additionally, it enables vehicles and IoT devices to perform one-time signature verification with minimal latency in V2V messaging, demonstrating significant performance improvements for high-density deployments involving mutual authentication between IoT devices and V2V communication.
Keywords: Internet of Things (IoT); TLS/DTLS; Vehicle-to-Everything (V2X); blockchain; certificate authority (CA); certificates; public key infrastructure (PKI).