Paper 2025/694 Original: eprint.iacr.org/2025/694 ↗

A Formal Security Analysis of Hyperledger AnonCreds

Abstract

In an anonymous credential system, users collect credentials from issuers, and can use their credentials to generate privacy-preserving identity proofs that can be shown to third-party verifiers. Since the introduction of anonymous credentials by Chaum in 1985, there has been promising advances with respect to system design, security analysis and real-world implementations of anonymous credential systems. In this paper, we examine Hyperledger AnonCreds, an anonymous credential system that was introduced in 2017 and is currently undergoing specification. Despite being implemented in deployment-ready identity system platforms, there is no formal security analysis of the Hyperledger AnonCreds protocol. We rectify this, presenting syntax and a security model for, and a first security analysis of, the Hyperledger AnonCreds protocol. In particular, we demonstrate that Hyperledger AnonCreds is correct, and satisfies notions of unforgeability and anonymity. We conclude with a discussion on the implications of our findings, highlighting the importance of rigorous specification efforts to support security evaluation of real-world cryptographic protocols.