Securing the Internet of Things via Blockchain-Aided Smart Contracts

Abstract

The Internet of Things (IoT) paradigm is a relatively novel concept that is rapidly and steadily growing in modern wireless communication models. In IoT, many of the objects in the surrounding environment of us are networked in one or more forms. Sensor network technologies are increasing to meet this new challenge where invisible information and communication systems are embedded in our surroundings. This produces a large amount of information that must be acquired, transferred, stored, sorted, processed, and presented in an integrated, efficient, sensible, and easily interpretable format. Therefore, this interaction and cooperation between humans and smart devices create new challenges for exchanging information security. On the other hand, the lack of appropriate and strong security services, arrangements, and measures can have a negative or even detrimental effect on the objective acceptance of the IoT paradigm. This paper delves into the impacts of the message queuing telemetry transport (MQTT) protocol, which is a widely-applied protocol in the implemented IoT schemes. This protocol does not guarantee secure and reliable native authentication mechanisms requested by developers. Thus, this paper proposes an authentication scheme via blockchain-based smart contracts for MQTT. This proposal enables the authentication of devices in the IoT network by preserving client security and privacy to ensure trust and accountability through Ethereum-based smart contracts. This review article intends to express the security challenges of this issue as well as its proposed solution in the form of a general description of the work.