Blockchain Papers

Abdulaziz Aldaej, Mohammed Atiquzzaman, Tariq Ahamed Ahanger, Piyush Kumar Shukla

No abstract is available for this record.

Rihab Jmal, Walid Ghabri, Ramzi Guesmi, Badr M. Alshammari · 6 authors

By bringing smart and advanced solutions, the Internet of Things (IoT) has opened up new dimensions of innovative services and processing power for contemporary living standards. IoT has a wide range of devices and communication entities as a result of the widespread applications of these services, making network management a challenging task. Therefore, it is critical to redesign the IoT network’s management. The inherent programmability and centralized capabilities of software-defined networking (SDN) make network management simpler, enable network abstraction, make network evolution easier, and have the potential to handle the IoT network. However, security issues still present the IoT dilemma. Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks are among the most significant security threats in IoT systems. This paper studies in-depth DDoS attacks in IoT and in SDN. A review of different detection and mitigation techniques based on SDN, blockchain and machine learning models is conducted. A holistic, secure IoT system is proposed on the basis of SDN with multicontrollers. Blockchain is considered to guarantee security in distributed SDN-IoT networks and ANN to improve the detection and mitigation process.

Wenjuan Li, Yu Wang, Jin Li

No abstract is available for this record.

Michael G. Xevgenis, Dimitrios G. Kogias, Panagiotis Karkazis, Helen C. Leligou

Undoubtedly, we are witnessing a new era of computer networks that aspire to support modern demanding applications by providing the highest Quality of Experience (QoE) to the end user. Next Generations Networks (NGNs) ensure that characteristics such as ultra-low latency, high availability and wide service coverage can be met across the network regardless of the network infrastructure ownership. To accomplish that, beyond the necessary improvements in the radio propagation field, changes have been made in the core network functions which are now characterized as programmable, and software defined. Software Defined Networks (SDNs) and Network Function Virtualization (NFV) are the keystones of the NGNs flexibility. The high expectations of NGNs’ performance and the continuous changes in the network conditions lead to the development of new network management frameworks that add elasticity and dynamicity and minimize human intervention. ETSI (the European Standards Organization) presents the Zero-touch Service Management (ZSM) framework that uses hyped technologies such as Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML) to achieve full end-to-end automation of the network services’ management across one or many different domains. Focusing on multi-domain network service management, there are several security issues identified by the standardization team which mostly derive from the lack of trust among network providers. In the present research, we explore the suitability of blockchain technology adoption for facing these security issues. Blockchain technology inherently addresses security in trustless environments such as the infrastructures defined by the ZSM team. Our contribution is three-fold: (a) we define the architecture of a multi-domain network infrastructure that adopts the ZSM approach and integrates blockchain functionality, (b) we explore the adoption of different blockchain and distributed ledger technologies (DLT) approaches to address ZSM security needs and (c) we provide guidelines to prospective solution designers/implementers on the detailed requirements that this solution has to meet to maximize the offered value.

Abegaz Mohammed Seid, Aiman Erbad, Hayla Nahom Abishu, Abdullatif Albaseer · 6 authors

In 5G and B5G networks, real-time and secure resource allocation with the common telecom infrastructure is challenging. This problem may be more severe when mobile users are growing and connectivity is interrupted by natural disasters or other emergencies. To address the resource allocation problem, the network slicing technique has been applied to assign virtualized resources to multiple network slices, guaranteeing the 5G-RAN quality of service. Moreover, to tackle connectivity interruptions during emergencies, UAVs have been deployed as airborne base stations, providing various services to ground networks. However, this increases the complexity of resource allocation in the shared infrastructure of 5G-RAN. Therefore, this paper proposes a dynamic resource allocation framework that synergies blockchain and multi-agent deep reinforcement learning for multi-UAV-enabled 5G-RAN to allocate resources to smart mobile user equipment (SMUE) with optimal costs. The blockchain ensures the security of virtual resource transactions between SMUEs, infrastructure providers (InPs), and virtual network operators (VNOs). We formulate a virtualized resource allocation problem as a hierarchical Stackelberg game containing InPs, VNOs, and SMUEs, and then transform it into a stochastic game model. Then, we adopt a Multi-agent Deep Deterministic Policy Gradient (MADDPG) algorithm to solve the formulated problem and obtain the optimal resource allocation policies that maximize the utility function. The simulation results show that the MADDPG method outperforms the state-of-the-art methods in terms of utility optimization and quality of service satisfaction.

Amir Al Sadi, Carlo Mazzocca, Andrea Melis, Rebecca Montanari · 6 authors

The recent widespread novel network technologies for programming data planes are remarkably enhancing the customization of data packet processing. In this direction, the Programming Protocol-independent Packet Processors (P4) is envisioned as a disruptive technology, capable of configuring network devices in a highly customizable way. P4 enables network devices to adapt their behaviors to mitigate malicious attacks (e.g., denial of service). Distributed ledger technologies (DLTs), such as blockchain, allow secure reporting alerts on malicious actions detected across different areas. However, the blockchain suffers from major scalability concerns due to the consensus protocols needed to agree on a global state of the network. To overcome these limitations, new solutions have recently emerged. IOTA is a next-generation distributed ledger engineered to tackle the scalability limits while still providing the same security capabilities such as immutability, traceability, and transparency. This article proposes an architecture that integrates a P4-based data plane software-defined network (SDN) and an IOTA layer employed to notify about networking attacks. Specifically, we propose a fast, secure, and energy-efficient DLT-enabled architecture that combines the IOTA data structure, named Tangle, with the SDN layer to detect and notify about network threats.

Tharaka Hewa, Pawani Porambage, Anshuman Kalla, Diana Pamela Moya Osorio · 6 authors

As a distributed ledger technology, blockchain has received significant attention in revolutionizing telecommunication and networking domains. This article proposes a blockchain-based network slice brokering mechanism for multioperator and multitenant environments of the envisioned 6G networks.

Ashwini Bhoware, Kapil Jajulwar, Sujesh D. Ghodmare, Kuldeep Dabhekar · 5 authors

To mine a blockchain on IP Networks, one must do several tasks related to chain management, rule optimization, verification, and hash generation design. Various consensus model subsets may benefit from the various blockchain mining techniques proposed by researchers. Most of these techniques, however, are rather complicated, which slows down the mining process for large-scale blockchains. Overly simplistic models that include unnecessary redundancies are inefficient and have little practical use. To solve these issues and boost blockchain mining efficiency in large-scale deployments, the authors of this paper propose creating a novel hybrid bioinspired approach. The proposed IP Network model is adaptable to almost all consensus procedures and may be easily combined with dynamic consensus models with few alterations. After collecting performance and context-specific data from the underlying blockchains, the technique uses Genetic Algorithm (GA) that distributes these range sets among miner nodes that support trust, allowing for high-performance mining while maintaining a high degree of trust under actual application situations. The model was tested against Proof-of-Stake (PoS), Proof-of- Work (PoW), Proof-of- Trust (PoT), and Practical Byzantine Fault Tolerance (PBFT) based consensus algorithms to ensure its effectiveness in real-world scenarios. Mining latency, energy consumption, and computational complexity were used as metrics against which this performance was measured. This analysis revealed that the proposed model has the potential to decrease mining latency by 4.5%, energy usage by 3.9%, and compute complexity by 4.1% across a variety of consensus mechanisms, making it suitable for a number of real-time applications.

Anichur Rahman, Jahidul Islam, Dipanjali Kundu, Md. Razaul Karim · 9 authors

Summary As an emerging technology, blockchain (BC) has been playing a promising role in today's software‐defined networking (SDN)‐enabled Internet of Things (IoT) applications. Because of the salient feature of the network function virtualization (NFV) techniques, SDN can ensure an IoT system runs efficiently and smoothly in a cloud‐driven ecosystem. When cloud‐enabled systems encounter immense security and operational challenges caused mainly by third‐party dependency, large‐scale data communication, and maintenance, BC offers effective and robust data transfer solutions without incorporating intermediaries over the distributed network. With the increased SDN‐BC convergence in the IoT domain, the underlying challenges and perspectives deserve proper attention methodically and structurally. From the motivation of addressing such issues, this study provides necessary insights to combine those for successful plug‐and‐play. Therefore, the study includes purposefully investigating current state‐of‐the‐art to extract the research trends, future directions, and perspectives in this domain. This study provides a comprehensive survey of IoT, SDN, NFV, and BC‐enabled emerging technologies. More importantly, the authors intelligently integrated the four different technologies—IoT, SDN, BC, and NFV based on characteristics, scopes, challenges, taxonomies, and tables in numerous areas. Initially, the authors introduce the SDN‐IoT ecosystem in brief and address the features and applications. We took a close look at the SDN's overall taxonomy based on security, environment, scopes, and challenges. We also briefly describe the integration of SDN‐IoT with the NFV ecosystems. Moreover, we review the prospect of BC technology from security perspectives, its extent, challenges of practical implementation, and the possible integration of IoT regarding smart applications. Finally, this study highlights several future directions based on these technologies.

Thomas Kwantwi, Guolin Sun, Noble Arden Kuadey, Gerald Tietaa Maale · 5 authors

We investigate the computing resource allocation in multi-access edge network slicing (NS) in the context of revenue and multi-access edge computing (MEC) resource management. The significant variety of slice resource utilization levels across slice tenants (i.e., Mobile Virtual Network Operators (MVNOs)) challenges MEC resource management in NS with MEC, leading to virtual machine resource (VMR) (i.e., computing resource) wastage or scarcity. As a result, for efficient MEC resource management, the infrastructure provider (InP) encourages dynamic resource sharing and trading (DRST) of unutilized slice VMR quotas. Nevertheless, cellular network security and privacy issues deter MVNOs from collaborating on effective DRST. The security characteristics inherent in blockchain have recently gained much interest for secure resource trading. Thus, this paper proposes a unique hierarchical blockchain-based inter-slice computing resource trading (ISCRT) scheme for peer-to-peer (P2P) MVNOs in an autonomous multi-sliced MEC-based 5G network. For secure ISCRT transactions, a consortium blockchain network with hyperledger smart contracts (SC) is designed. We model the demand and pricing problems of buyer and seller MVNOs for the unutilized VMRs using a two-stage Stackelberg game. Then, to obtain the Stackelberg equilibrium (SE), an enhanced dueling double deep Q-network (D3QN) algorithm is proposed, which intelligently determines the optimal demand and pricing policies of MVNOs for the unutilized VMRs during ISCRT transactions at negotiation intervals. Simulation analysis shows that the proposed enhanced D3QN algorithm outperforms benchmark schemes in terms of the MVNO slice-level satisfaction and VMR utilization while reducing double-spending attacks in ISCRT settings by 16% and increasing both players’ utility.

Yihong Li, Qi Tao, Yadong Gong

No abstract is available for this record.

Evrim Güler, Murat Karakuş, Suleyman Uludag

No abstract is available for this record.

Zakaria Abou El Houda, Abdelhakim Hafid, Lyes Khoukhi

Distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks continue to grow at a rapid rate plaguing Internet Service Providers (ISPs) and individuals in a stealthy way. Thus, intrusion detection systems (IDSs) must evolve to cope with these increasingly sophisticated and challenging security threats. Traditional IDSs are prone to zero-day attacks since they are usually signature-based detection systems. The recent advent of machine learning and deep learning (ML/DL) techniques can help strengthen these IDSs. However, the lack of up-to-date labeled training datasets makes these ML/DL based IDSs inefficient. The privacy nature of these datasets and widespread emergence of adversarial attacks make it difficult for major organizations to share their sensitive data. Federated Learning (FL) is gaining momentum from both academia and industry as a new sub-field of ML that aims to train a global statistical model across multiple distributed users, referred to as collaborators, without sharing their private data. Due to its privacy-preserving nature, FL has the potential to enable privacy-aware learning between a large number of collaborators. This paper presents a novel framework, called MiTFed, that allows multiple software defined networks (SDN) domains ($i.e.,$collaborators) to collaboratively build a global intrusion detection model without sharing their sensitive datasets. In particular, MiTFed consists of: (1) a novel distributed architecture that allows multiple SDN based domains to securely collaborate in order to cope with sophisticated security threats while preserving the privacy of each SDN domain; (2) a novel Secure Multiparty Computation (SMPC) scheme to securely aggregate local model updates; and (3) a blockchain based scheme that uses Ethereum smart contracts to maintain the collaboration in a fully decentralized, trustworthy, flexible, and efficient manner. To the best of our knowledge, MiTFed is the first framework that leverages FL, blockchain and SDN technologies to mitigate the new emerging security threats in large scale. To evaluate MiTFed, we conduct several experiments using real-world network attacks; the experimental results using the well-known public network security dataset NSL-KDD show that MiTFed achieves efficiency and high accuracy in detecting the new emerging security threats in both binary and multi-class classification while preserving the privacy of collaborators, making it a promising framework to cope with the new emerging security threats in SDN.

Ugochukwu Chigoziem Ikpeazu

One of the core technologies facilitating interaction today is the internet, and so the question of how much this technology must evolve is inevitable. Cue in the Web3 debate.

Nisita Weerasinghe, Raaj Mishra, Pawani Porambage, Madhusanka Liyanage · 5 authors

In the current 5th Generation (5G) networking paradigm, the enforcement of Service Level Agreements (SLAs) is a non-trivial measure to ensure the scope and the quality of services and standards between tenants and service providers (SPs). On top of this, Secure Service Level Agreements (SSLA) are introduced to ensure that SPs deliver the most critical and required security-related standards defined in the contract, such as integrity, confidentiality, availability, non-repudiation, and privacy assurance. However, with the tendency for more distributed and multi-stakeholder networking architectures in next-generation networks, the management process of such SSLAs will be challenging due to the diversified security vulnerabilities and complexity of underlying technologies. Although blockchain is emerging as a platform to facilitate such distributed SSLA/SLA management frameworks, its currently available consensus mechanisms are more generic. Still, they need to improve in terms of applying in multi-stakeholder networks. Therefore, this paper presents a novel consensus mechanism called Proof-of-Monitoring (PoM) for a blockchain-based novel SSLA management framework. Moreover, we provide details about the prototype implementation of our proposed consensus algorithm and SSLA management framework. It is proven by comparing our proposal with the other existing solutions that our solution outperforms in many aspects, such as energy consumption, computation cost, and security features.

Debashis Das, Sourav Banerjee, Kousik Dasgupta, Pushpita Chatterjee · 6 authors

Fifth-generation (5G) wireless networks are now operational to deploy all over the world. The technology of 5G’s objective is to link heterogeneous machines and devices with significant improvements high quality of service (QoS), internet bandwidth, and improved system throughput to enable several upright applications. Despite all these benefits that 5G will provide, still, significant issues need to be resolved, such as decentralization, transparency, and risks associated with data interoperability, network privacy, and security vulnerabilities. Modern networks link an enormous number of devices to the Internet, and in this complicated situation, the use of BC and SDN has been effectively advocated to assure security, privacy, and secrecy. This study offers a blockchain-enabled SDN framework for securing transactions that makes use of Software Defined Network (SDN) and Network Function Virtualization (NFV) to overcome these issues. The proposed framework can address the man-in-the-middle attack between control and data plane in SDN networks. A controller authentication scheme is provided using smart contracts. Smart contracts automatically authenticate the SDN controller to increase the efficiency of controller verification. The communicated data can also be authenticated using smart contracts. The proposed framework can enhance network transparency, data security, and user privacy. Each SDN controller can access verifiable data using the proposed framework.

Mykola Beshley, Mykhailo Klymash, Ilona Scherm, Halyna Beshley · 5 authors

No abstract is available for this record.

Sumati Kulkarni, Joseph Wireman, Nasseh Tabrizi

No abstract is available for this record.

Sidra Tul Muntaha, Pavlos I. Lazaridis, Maryam Hafeez, Qasim Zeeshan Ahmed · 6 authors

Dynamic spectrum access (DSA) and network slicing are some of the principal concepts to realize the emerging applications in Beyond 5th Generation (B5G) and 6th Generation (6G) networks. The frequency spectrum remains scarce and underutilized, while the performance requirements in terms of data throughput and latency of the network tenants have diversified. DSA allows for the efficient utilization of spectrum resources, while network slicing aims to serve network users with highly distinctive service needs. Lack of incentivization, sharing of spectrum resources among multiple operators, and lack of trust between operators are some of the challenges faced by centralized DSA approaches. Similarly, secure network slice orchestration, slice-isolation, secure access to network resources, privacy of user sensitive data, assuring the provision of Service Level Agreements (SLAs), are some of the challenges in existing network slicing techniques. Blockchain due to its innate capabilities can be a promising technology to solve the key issues pertaining to current DSA and network slicing approaches. Blockchain through smart contracts, provides traceability of network resources, auditability and accountability of network operators and service providers. Smart contracts facilitate the automation of resource sharing and network slice orchestration, while ensuring that SLAs are met, and network operators are compensated. This paper first provides a comprehensive overview of the DSA concept, the existing DSA techniques, and the challenges posed by these techniques. This is followed by a detailed description of network slicing, its key elements and architecture, various network slicing parameters, existing network slicing techniques and their challenges. Then an in- depth review on blockchain, its working principle, factors that affect blockchain implementation, and a comparison of various open-source blockchain platforms that support smart contracts is presented. This discussion is summarized by presenting the state-of-the-art in the blockchain-enabled DSA and network slicing, challenges and trade-offs of these techniques, and the gaps and future directions in this research area. Finally, we conclude by providing some future research directions.

Stephen W. Turner, Murat Karakuş, Evrim Güler, Suleyman Uludag

The state of computer network technologies has continually advanced at a rapid pace. Software Defined Networking (SDN) and Blockchain (BC) have emerged as complementary technologies providing support that facilitates greater security and greater network performance for many domains of application, including the Internet of Things (IoT) ecosystem, ideally resulting in an improvement in our collective quality of life. The proliferation of IoT devices, driven by a wide variety of use cases and its ubiquitous availability, combined with the emergence of SDN and BC, presents rich opportunities for various emerging research efforts. This paper presents a comprehensive survey of the studies in which BC and SDN have been integrated into the IoT ecosystem, referred to hereafter as BC-enabled Software- Defined IoT (BC-SDIoT). First, we discuss the motivations and drivers for integrating BC-enabled SDN and BC-SDIoT, as well as the benefits and drawbacks. Second, we categorize the relevant studies according to six key implementation objectives and ideas that combine BC, SDN, and IoT technologies to create smart, secure, and effective frameworks: Security, computing paradigms (edge and fog computing), trust management, access control & authentication, privacy, and networking. In the corresponding sections, we present the categories (i.e., problem domains) of the aforementioned novel taxonomy and discuss related studies (i.e., solutions) in depth. Finally, we outline potential major challenges, open issues, and future prospects that require further research attention and intensive endeavors for complete and ground-breaking frameworks to broaden newer research domains in BC-SDIoT. This survey paper may be a fruitful primer for a reader investigating the exploitation of BC in SDN and IoT ecosystems.

Carlos Bendicho, Daniel Bendicho

This article shows a brief history of Techno-Economic Assessment (TEA) in Communications, a proposed redefinition of TEA as well as the new challenges derived from a dynamic context with cloud-native virtualized networks, the Helium Network & alike blockchain-based decentralized networks, the new network as a platform (NaaP) paradigm, carbon pricing, network sharing, and web3, metaverse and blockchain technologies. The authors formulate the research question and show the need to improve TEA models to integrate and manage all this increasing complexity. This paper also proposes the characteristics TEA models should have and their current degree of compliance for several use cases: 5G and beyond, software-defined wide area network (SD-WAN), secure access service edge (SASE), secure service edge (SSE), and cloud cybersecurity risk assessment. The authors also present TEA extensibility to request for proposals (RFP) processes and other industries, to conclude that there is an urgent need for agile and effective TEA in Comms that allows industrialization of agile decision-making for all market stakeholders to choose the optimal solution for any technology, scenario and use case.

Ramesh Vatambeti, Nadella Sree Divya, Hanumantha Rao Jalla, M. Venu Gopalachari

Cyber-physical systems (CPSs) are highly susceptible to malicious cyberattacks due to their reliance on communication networks. For this reason, many different attack detection techniques have been developed to guarantee the safety of CPSs. This article introduces BlockChain (BC) to address CPS issues such as data security and privacy. Additionally, BC is not well suited for CPS due to its high computing complexity, limited scalability, significant bandwidth overhead, and latency. To meet the requirements of CPS, a light-weight blockchain-based signature algorithm (LWBSA) model is developed in this work. The concept's resource constraints are alleviated by having a single centrally managed manager generate shared keys for outward-bound data transmission requests. The LWBSA paradigm provided herein produces an overlay network where extremely equipped resources can merge into a community BC, hence ensuring both dedicated privileges. Lightweight consensus, the elliptic curve digital signature algorithm (ECDSA), and distributed throughput management (DTM) are the three optimizations implemented in the ELIB model discussed here. Extensive simulation is carried out to examine the implications of different situations on processing time, energy usage, and overhead. The experimental outcomes show that the LWBSA achieves the best possible performance across a wide variety of measures.

Yustus Eko Oktian, Thi-Thu-Huong Le, Uk Jo, Howon Kim

With the limited Internet bandwidth in a given area, unlimited data plans can create congestion because there is no retribution for transmitting many packets. The real-time pricing mechanism can inform users of their Internet consumption to limit congestion during peak hours. However, implementing real-time pricing is opex-heavy from the network provider side and requires high-integrity operations to gain consumer trust. This paper aims to leverage the software-defined network to solve the opex issues and blockchain technology to solve trust issues. First, the network congestion level in a given area is analyzed. Then, the price is adjusted accordingly. Devices that send a lot of traffic during congestion will be charged more expensive bills than if transmitting traffic during an off-peak period. To prevent over-charging, the consumers can pre-configure a customized Internet profile stating how many data bytes they are willing to send during congestion. The software-defined controller also authenticates consumers and checks whether they have enough token deposits in the blockchain as Internet usage fees. We implement our work using Ethereum and POX controllers. The experiment results show that the proposed real-time pricing can be performed seamlessly, and the network provider can reap up to 72.91% more profits than existing approaches, such as usage-based pricing or time-dependent pricing. The fairness and trustability of real-time pricing is also guaranteed through the proof-of-usage mechanism and the transparency of the blockchain.

Anurag Parcha, Sanjana Mishra, Aditya Bist, Reema Agarwal · 7 authors

Today, IoT systems have become prominent, especially in the fields of healthcare, agriculture, and manufacturing. IoT systems encompass numerous devices that become targets for attacks and exploitation, thereby making these systems prone to security vulnerabilities. While IoT has become a widespread technology by virtue of its scalability, dependability, and ease of access, its shortcomings should also be addressed. Currently, client-server model of networking is employed in IoT devices which use a single gateway for transferring data and connecting through a cloud server. This model demands a high cost for cloud maintenance and network equipment. Furthermore, a single gateway is not secure as one failed node can compromise the entire network. To improve security, we propose the inclusion of blockchain technology; a distributed ledger where data is stored across several nodes, thereby eliminating single point failure. This project proposes the benefits of blockchain technology in conjunction with security of IoT systems.