Towards using blockchain technology for IoT data access protection

Abstract

In the past few years, the number of wireless devices connected to the Internet has increased to a number that could reach billions in the next few years. While cloud computing is being seen as the solution to process this data, security challenges could not be addressed solely with this technology. Security problems will continue to increase with such a model, especially for private and sensitive data such as data personal and medical data collected with more and more sophisticated connected devices (forming the IoT). Thus the need for a fully decentralized peer to peer and secure technology to overcome these problems. The blockchain Technology is a promising approach giving the properties it brings to the field. This paper illustrates an architecture based on blockchain technology, and a protocol for data access, using smart contracts and a publisher-subscriber mechanism.