Countering Botnet of Things using Blockchain-Based Authenticity Framework

Abstract

The success and widespread use of Internet of Things (IoT) bring remarkable contributions and economic benefits in various fields. However, the increasing number of devices also raises security concerns. The prevalence of Botnet of Things (BoT) has been observed and it has been recently reported that the launched attacks affect multiple domains and have caused unacceptable losses. As majority of IoT devices are manufactured off-shore, ensuring their identity becomes one of the major challenges. Cloned devices, with backdoors for malicious purposes, can provide an undue advantage of the adversary to compromise a system even though proper security measures are in place. In this paper, we propose a novel blockchain-based framework to provide traceability of hardware. A unique identity for every IoT device is ensured using a physically unclonable function (PUF). The blockchain provides the verification of these devices by comparing these unique IDs. HyperLedger is selected to implement the blockchain-based framework, and its performance is being evaluated and analyzed.