Badr Eddine Sabir, Mohamed Youssfi, Omar Bouattane, Hakim Allali
The Internet of Things (IoT) is becoming an indispensable part of the actual Internet and continues to extend deeper into the daily lives of people, offering distributed and critical services. Mobile agents are widely used in the context of IoT and due to the possibility of transmitting their execution status from one device to another in an IoT network, they offer many advantages such as reducing network load, encapsulating protocols, exceeding network latency, etc. Also, Blockchain Technology is growing rapidly allowing for the addition of an approved security layer in many areas. Security issues related to mobile agent migration can be resolved with the use of Blockchain. This paper aims to demonstrate how Blockchain Technology can be used to secure mobile agents in the context of the IoT using Ethereum and a Smart Contract. The transactions within the Blockchain are used to detect the malevolent mobile agents that could infiltrate the IoT systems. The proposed model aims to provide a secure migration of mobile agents to ensure security and protect the IoT applications against malevolent agents. The case of a smart home with multiple applications is applied to verify the proposed solution. The model presented in this paper could be extended to a wider selection of IoT systems outside of the smart home.
Francesco Buccafurri, Vincenzo De Angelis, Roberto Nardone
The Internet of Things is constantly capturing interest from modern applications, changing our everyday life and empowering industrial applications. Interaction and the collaboration among smart devices offer new challenges to security since they conflict with economic and energy consumption requirement constraints. On the other hand, the lack of security measures could negatively impact the concrete adoption of this paradigm. This paper focuses on the Message Queuing Telemetry Transport (MQTT) protocol, widely adopted in the Internet of Things. This protocol does not implement natively secure authentication mechanisms, which are demanded to developers. Hence, this paper proposes a novel OTP (one-time password)-authentication schema for MQTT, which uses the Ethereum blockchain to implement a second-factor out-of-band channel. The proposal enables the authentication of both local and remote devices preserving user privacy and guaranteeing trust and accountability via Ethereum smart contracts.
Traditional IT security mechanisms are generally not well-suited for IoT devices, where processing and network connectivity should be kept at minimal. Consequently, IoT devices have been recently identified as an easy target for cyber-attacks, like for example on the Mirai botnet Distributed Denial of Service attacks in 2016, where various devices were hacked into and taken over. Different solutions have been developed aiming at guaranteeing the security at both the devices application layer and the network layers. Few succeeded to deliver the flexibility necessary for IoT devices. Even fewer have implemented an effective threats detection system, and just a handful have realised all the previous in a fully decentralised fashion, including this one. This Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT) attestation system is maintained and supported by most, or all, IoT devices because it is based on a light-weight DLT protocol. It comprises of a system for authorisation and authentication for the individual devices as well as includes an anomalies detection system based on smart contracts. A demonstration was built to support a Smart City use case. The objective is to guarantee, in a decentralised manner, the security of low computational power devices executing the sensing function and their connectivity, and therefore the correct functioning of the system. On the demonstrator, the system was ran using DLT supported by the sensors connectivity bridge (built using Raspberry Pi’s). The system proved to be rapid to develop, flexible with regards to systems changes and resilient to attacks to both individual IoT devices and to the DLT.
Li-e Wang, Yan Bai, Quan Jiang, Victor C. M. Leung · 6 authors
By facilitating multiple independent owners to jointly control a distributed network, blockchain can be used to solve the problem of device collaboration in complex networks (e.g., 5G, health care industries) through a distributed consensus mechanism. However, the state-of-the-art blockchain-based solutions cannot meet the demand of high transaction rate for those applications, due to the unavoidable data synchronization cost in decentralized systems. To address this issue, recent research splits blockchain nodes into multiple groups as parallel shardings to improve scalability at the cost of increased communication and storage per node. This paper proposes a fast and secure distributed blockchain protocol to reduce the traffic complexity while enhancing the transaction rates and the capability of fault-toleration. We introduce Proof-of-Behavior (PoB), a behavior-based incentive mechanism, for stimulating honest behavior and neutralizing malicious attacks. We design a blockchain protocol by integrating PoB with Raft, another classic consensus protocol with supervision, called Beh-Raft-Chain. Our approach replaces Practical Byzantine Fault Tolerance (PBFT) with Behavior-based Raft to lower the traffic complexity to O(n) and boost the capability of fault-toleration from n/4 to n/3, where n is the scale of blockchain. In our solution, we weigh all nodes based on their money and behaviors, and then set an adjustment parameter to increase the probability of candidate nodes being chosen beyond only a few nodes with the highest weight, in order to incentivize honest behavior in our mechanism. Our comparative experiments confirm Beh-Raft-Chain's theoretical low complexity and high fault-toleration properties.
One of the major challenges in the healthcare industry is the information sharing and patient's privacy. The implementation of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPPA) [30] in 1996 made difficult for software vendors to manage the documents and records of the patients. Blockchain based technology, which uses cryptography to facilitate exchange and transaction of values and goods over a network, has been proposed to resolve this issue. The decentralized ledge of blockchain would provide immutability, confidentiality, accountability and transparency for information sharing between healthcare stakeholders. In this paper, we implemented the Ethereum Smart Contract, an extended part of the blockchain in healthcare industry with objectives of keeping all the records and transactions safe and secure, and at the same time, reducing the number of user data breaches. We carried out a number of experiments in order to demonstrate the usability and efficiency of our proposed approach.
Multi-tenant cloud computing is crucial in cloud service providers because they could gain benefit from allocating many users or tenants with the small amount of physical resource. However, multi-tenant could also cause some serious damaged due to the same location which tenant are placed. One of the problems is data leakage performing through co-resident attack from malicious tenant which result in the data to be stolen and caused business to loss the profit. Malicious tenants could modify their request or transaction for preventing anyone to trace back to them. After studying from related paper which show some implementation of Blockchain and cloud computing, we decide to use Blockchain to support cloud computing system. In order to observe and investigate in bad activity without any modification of activities, we introduce Blockchain which will help in auditing of transactions between tenants and cloud provider any provide strong integrity of transactions log. Moreover, we also integrate the Smart Contract which help on simulation on the allocation mechanism, policy checking and other functions between cloud provider and tenants for easily integrating cloud computing system on Blockchain. Our expected result would be that cloud computing could be implemented on Blockchain together with other functional features of cloud computing.
Sina Rafati Niya, Eryk Schiller, Ile Cepilov, Burkhard Stiller
In Industry 4.0 (I4), the Industrial Internet of Things (I2oT) data streams are prone to significant data manipulation risks. The integration of Blockchains (BC) with I2oT may become a solution preventing from this problem. This paper provides a blockchain-agnostic Blockchain I2oT (BI2oT) architecture called BIIT that allows developing a broad range of BC applications fully integrating Internet of Things (IoT). The mechanisms introduced in BIIT aim at solutions that provide data reliability, limit the computational overhead, and enhance energy efficiency. BIIT is evaluated through real-world experimentation.
Eder J. Scheid, Daniel Lakic, Bruno Rodrigues, Burkhard Stiller
Due to the growing interest in the blockchain (BC), several applications are being developed, taking advantage of the benefits that such technology promises to deliver, such as removal of Trust Third Parties (TTP) to verify transactions and data immutability. However, these applications require certain aspects, such as high transaction throughput or data privacy, that early BC implementations (e.g., Bitcoin) did not provide. Thus, a myriad of novel BC implementations was developed, which introduced the issue of choosing the right implementation for a specific use-case. This paper presents a framework, called PleBeuS, to address this selection issue by allowing users to specify policies that rule the automatic selection of the BC that data will be stored. The selection process relies on a cost-aware approach and considers both public and private implementations and their technical characteristics. Moreover, PleBeuS communicates with a BC-agnostic interoperability API to enforce transactions. The evaluation of the PleBeuS prototype showed that it is possible to automatically select a BC-based on user policies, considering cost thresholds and technical details (e.g., BC throughput, deployment), and reduce manual interaction.
Fog computing is a new distributed computing paradigm that extends the cloud to the network edge. Fog computing aims at improving quality of service, data access, networking, computation and storage. However, the security and privacy issues persist, even if many cloud solutions were proposed. Indeed, Fog computing introduces new challenges in terms of security and privacy, due to its specific features such as mobility, geo-distribution and heterogeneity etc. Blockchain is an emergent concept bringing efficiency in many fields. In this paper, we propose a new access control scheme based on blockchain technology for the fog computing with fault tolerance in the context of the Internet of Things. Blockchain is used to provide secure management authentication and access process to IoT devices. Each network entity authenticates in the blockchain via the wallet, which allows a secure communication in decentralized environment, hence it achieves the security objectives. In addition, we propose to establish a secure connection between the users and the IoT devices, if their attributes satisfy the policy stored in the blockchain by smart contract. We also address the blockchain transparency problem by the encryption of the users attributes both in the policy and in the request. An authorization token is generated if the encrypted attributes are identical. Moreover, our proposition offers higher scalability, availability and fault tolerance in Fog nodes due to the implementation of load balancing through the Min-Min algorithm.
In the modern world where we reside in everything is shifting towards being digital, from online transaction to teaching”, thus this paper aims at something like this only that is blockchain and its application in multiple domains. The paper investigates blockchain and its current scenario, it first focuses on the emergence of blockchain and its working and also briefly explains the characteristics and challenges faced by technology. The blockchain serves as an immutable way that allows the transactions to happen in a decentralized manner and by allowing the digital information to be distributed, blockchain has built a backbone for a new type of internet. In this paper, application areas of blockchain such as banking, healthcare, etc. are also discussed.
Raheel Ahmed Memon, Jianping Li, Junaid Ahmed, Muhammad Irshad Nazeer · 6 authors
The Internet of Things (IoT) has been evolving for more than a decade. Technological advancements have increased its popularity, but concerns and risks related to IoT are growing considerably along with the increased number of connected devices. In 2013, a new cryptography-based infrastructure called blockchain emerged with the potential to replace the existing cloud-based infrastructure of IoT through decentralization. In this article, we provide a taxonomy of the challenges in the current IoT infrastructure, and a literature survey with a taxonomy of the issues to expect in the future of the IoT after adopting blockchain as an infrastructure. The two architectures are compared based on their strengths and weaknesses. Then a brief survey of ongoing key research activities in blockchain is presented, which will have considerable impact on overcoming the challenges encountered in the applicability of blockchain in IoT. Finally, considering the challenges and issues in both infrastructures and the latest research activities, we propose a high-level hybrid IoT approach that uses the cloud, edge/fog, and blockchain together to avoid the limitations of each infrastructure.
Blockchain technology claims to provide unparalleled security and data privacy, yet some vulnerabilities have recently been identified. In this article, we showcase the key advantages of blockchain technology and look at recent security breaches, critically analyzing its benefits while highlighting some resulting financial mishaps.
Pranshu Bansal, Rohit Panchal, Sarthak Bassi, Amit Kumar
Blockchain is a decentralized ledger used to securely exchange digital currency, perform deals and transactions. Each member of the network has access to the latest copy of encrypted ledger so that they can validate a new transaction. Various features such as decentralization, trustworthiness, trackability and immutability are provided by the blockchain technology. This paper provides the blockchain architecture and explains the concept, characteristics, need of Blockchain in Security, how Bitcoin works and to enhance the security in the field of IoT. It attempts to highlights the role of Blockchain in shaping the future of Cyber Security, Cryptocurrency and adoption of IoT. This paper explains the need of blockchain technology in various technical fields and shows various advantages over conventional system.
5G propels mobile technology into the exclusive group of general purpose technologies that have marked the evolution of our history and triggered transformative changes in society. Edge computing is instrumental in helping 5G fulfil its promise and meet its expectations and requirements. This article discusses the value shifts occurred in the telecom value chain and shows how blockchain can aid value extraction in 5G, highlighting a number of services and applications of 5G networks that benefit from distributed ledger technology. Furthermore, the paper details a couple of applications enabled by the marriage of 5G with distributed ledger technology: autonomous unmanned (vehicular or aerial) systems and connected supply chains. The combination of 5G and edge computing permits to unlock new business value in telecom networks; in the same way that edge computing is the nexus of creating new value in 5G, blockchain is the fulcrum of capturing that new value.
Jinliang Xu, Shangguang Wang, Ao Zhou, Fangchun Yang
Nowadays scalable IoT management is a bottleneck of IoT development due to the geographically dispersed distribution, fragmented ownerships, and ever-growing population of IoT devices. To intelligently manage massive decentralized applications (dApps) in IoT usecases, Edgence (EDGe + intelligENCE) is proposed to use edge clouds to access IoT devices and users, and then use its in-built blockchain to realize self-governing and self-supervision of the edge clouds. Edgence proposes to use masternode technology to introduce IoT devices and users into a closed blockchain system, which can extend the range of blockchain to IoT-based dApps. Further, masternodes do good to scalability by raising the TPS (transactions per second) of the blockchain network. To support various dApps, a three-tier validation is proposed, namely script validation, smart contract validation, and masternode validation. To avoid energy consumption resulted by blockchain consensus, Edgence proposes a random but verifiable way to elect a masternode to generate each new block. The potential of the tailored Edgence is shown by examples of decentralized crowdsourcing and AI training.
Blockchain, as a promising solution to develop secure distributed ledgers, has drawn a huge attention over the last decade. By introducing a pseudonymous payment model with no central authority, blockchain marked the new generation of online payment systems, known as Cryptocurrencies. For most of the existing cryptocurrencies, scalability has become a challenging problem. When dealing with an ever increasing number of users, miners, and transactions, the technology is unable to scale and provide the same performance as centralised systems (e.g. centralised payment systems).Without addressing this fundamental scalability problem, such a promising technology may not be able to be adopted in mainstream. This paper provides an attempt to analyse the scalability of existing blockchain protocols and look at the major factors affecting scalability, namely throughput and latency. We also describe the HTNZ protocol, a new approach to improve the scalability of Satoshi Nakamoto's model [1], validated by experimental results. HTNZ introduces two new components, namely, sideBlock and helper. SideBlock has a slightly different structure of block and increases the number of transactions that can be processed per each interval.
Providing an acceptable level of security for Internet of Things (IoT)-based critical infrastructures, such as the connected vehicles, considers as an open research issue. Nowadays, blockchain overcomes a wide range of network limitations. In the context of IoT and blockchain, Byzantine Fault Tolerance (BFT)-based consensus protocol, that elects a set of authenticated devices/nodes within the network, considers as a solution for achieving the desired energy efficiency over the other consensus protocols. In BFT, the elected devices are responsible for ensuring the data blocks’ integrity and preventing the concurrently appended blocks that might contain some malicious data. In this paper, we evaluate the fault-tolerance with different network settings, i.e., the number of connected vehicles. We verify and validate the proposed model with MATLAB/Simulink package simulations. The results show that our proposed hybrid scenario performed over the non-hybrid scenario taking throughput and latency in the consideration as the evaluated metrics.
Adrián E. Coronado Mondragón, Christian E. Coronado Mondragon, Etienne S. Coronado
Along with Internet of Things -IoT-, distributed ledger/blockchain technology can provide substantial benefits to the management of supply chains. However the adoption of blockchain-based solutions may face substantial challenges such as scalability, which happens when several parties have to access and record information in a single blockchain. The use of two or more blockchains may help to mitigate such problem but it may require the use of an alternative architecture that enables interoperability. This work investigates the feasibility of adopting an agnostic blockchain architecture based on the particularities of the supply chain commonly found in the fisheries sector. A case in the fisheries sector in Atlantic Canada, characterized for the capture of different species destined for markets worldwide, is used to explore the adoption of an agnostic blockchain architecture. Emerging concepts such as agnotic blockchain applied to the supply chains of perishable goods may open the door to the development of innovative solutions.
Mohammad Shurman, Abed Al-Rahman Obeidat, Saif Al-Deen Al-Shurman
Integrating IoT with blockchains and Smart Contracts could be a solution of many problems in terms of security and scalability. A lot of applications are now implemented based on IoT Blockchain in smart governments and cities, industrial fields and smart transactions of sensitive data in order to maintain confidentiality and integrity of the data without the need of trusted third parties. However, we explained the terms Internet of things, Blockchains, Smart Contracts and how they work in separate. also suggested an architectural guideline for blockchain enabled IoT devices which facilitates sharing them between multiple blockchain ecosystems and at the same time, ensures the exclusive access to them seamlessly through blockchain smart contracts.
I P S P Wardhana, Gede Rasben Dantes, Kadek Yota Ernanda Aryanto
Abstract The falsification and embezzlement of personal data are still found in several cases in the past year. The reason is personal data in physical form are easily manipulated and difficult to be distinguished from the original. The most detrimental impact is if a person’s personal data is used for credit application fraud in the banking industry. Implementation of blockchain technologies, one of which is Ethereum, allows the use of contracts as a rule that must be fulfilled by the parties involved. All stored transactions are perpetual (cannot be deleted or changed), easy to be audited, transparent, and distributed at each participating node. This study aimed to develop a smart contract for personal data transactions with a case study of credit submission at the Bank. The authors developed a trial application using the prototype method in the process of assessment. Assessment was done by black box testing method in the scope of the lab with 10 credit submission data to be transacted. It is resulting in all credit submission data can be transacted and stored in the smart contract. The interview resulted in an opinion that blockchain technology can be used to store personal data and submit credit submissions at the Bank. The results of the analysis on assessments and interviews conclude that blockchain technology can be used as a medium to store personal data and secure credit applications. For future research, testing transactions can be done on Testnet networks with changing several blocks of data.
Blockchain and other forms of Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT) provide an opportunity to integrate digital information, management, and contracts to increase trust and collaboration within the construction industry. DLT enables direct peer-to-peer transactions of value across a distributed network by providing an immutable and transparent record of these transactions. Furthermore, there is potential for business process optimization and automation on the transaction level through the use of smart contracts, which are code protocols deployed on supported DLT systems. However, DLT research in the construction industry remains at a theoretical level; there have been few implementation case studies to date. One potential reason for this is a knowledge gap between use-case ideas and the DLT technical system implementation. This paper aims to reduce this gap by (1) reviewing and categorizing proposed DLT use cases in construction literature, (2) providing an overview of DLT and its design options, (3) proposing an integrated framework to match DLT design options with desired characteristics of a use case, and (4) analysing the use cases using the new framework. Together, the use case categories and proposed decision framework can guide future implementers toward more connected and structured thinking between the technological properties of DLT and use cases in construction.
By exploiting the massive data generated from the numerous interconnected machines and control systems, industrial Internet-of-Things (IIoT) provides unprecedented opportunities for facilitating the intelligence and smartness of manufacturing. Timely processing the large-scaled IIoT data by the conventional computation framework, such as Cloud computing, however, is nontrivial due to its costly resource usage, intolerable delay, and unbearable backbone pressures. By leveraging the idle resources of smart objects at the edge, mobile device cloud (MDC) becomes promising for the IIoT data analysis, thanks to the flexible resource provision and nearby task offloading. However, MDC workers are mostly human-carried devices with large scale, high dynamic resource provision, and untruthful behaviors, which pose significant challenges on MDC task allocation. In this article, we propose a blockchain-based decentralized and truthful framework for MDC (BC-MDC). BC-MDC enables the decentralization and prevents dishonesty by incorporating a plasma-based blockchain into the MDC. We design four smart contracts for distributedly managing the worker registration, task posting/allocation, rewarding, and penalizing. Furthermore, MDC task allocation is formulated as a stochastic optimization problem that jointly minimizes the long-term processing cost and risk of task failing. We also design a truthful reward/penalty algorithm that stimulates workers to provide resources and enforce them to keep the promise as well. Collaborated by the extensive simulation tests, we show how our proposed scheme achieves low cost on usage and high truthfulness and outperforms state-of-the-art solutions.