CryptoVault - A Secure Hardware Wallet for Decentralized Key Management

In traditional centralized internet services, third parties authenticate the transactions of the users. An important property of decentralized blockchain networks is the unrestricted and secured access to the private keys of users, which may often be threatened for several reasons. One considerable problem in systems based on blockchain technology is when users lose access to their keys due to, e.g., a broken or lost device. This paper, firstly, introduces an implementation that generates and maintains the private key in an Intel Software Guard Extension (SGX) enclave. The implementation allows using the private key in a process isolated from all other processes running on the same system. Secondly, the paper provides a method that enables the secure storage and recovery of a back-up key to and from an external repository, using an end-to-end secure connection. One proposed application, with which this technology could be exploited, is the social wallet.