A method and apparatus are provided for simply and securely limiting a number of times that contents can be accessed using a hash chain. The apparatus limiting a number of times contents are accessed by a user terminal includes a hash chain generator receiving information indicating selected contents by the user terminal and information indicating how many times (n) the user terminal has authority to access the selected contents and generating a hash chain including n hash values derived from a seed value, and a contents access manager deleting the hash values one by one from the hash chain whenever the user terminal accesses the selected contents such that the number of times the contents can be accessed by the user terminal is decreased by the number of deleted hash values.