A Secure and Trusted Fog Computing Approach based on Blockchain and Identity Federation for a Granular Access Control in IoT Environments

Abstract

Fog computing is a new computing paradigm that is an extension of the standard cloud computing model, which can be adopted as a cost effective strategy for managing connected objects , by enabling real-time computing and communication for analytical and decision making. Nonetheless, even though Fog-based Internet of Things networks optimize the standard architecture by moving computing, storage, communication, and control decision closer to the edge network, the technology becomes open to malicious attackers and remains many business risks that are not yet resolved. In fact, access control, privacy as well as trust risks present major challenges in Internet of Things environments based on Fog computing due to the large scale distributed nature of devices at the Fog layer. In addition, the traditional authentication methods are not adequate in Fog-based Internet of Things contexts since they consume significantly more computation power and incur high latency. To deal with these gaps, we present in this paper a secure and trusted Fog Computing approach based on Blockchain and Identity Federation technologies for a granular access control in IoT environments. The proposed scheme uses Smart Contract concept and Attribute-Based Access Control model to ensure the level of security and scalability required for data integrity without resorting to a central authority to make an access decision.