An Out-of-band Authentication Scheme for Internet of Things Using Blockchain Technology

Abstract

While the rapid development of IoT devices is changing our daily lives, some particular issues hinder the massive deployment of IoT devices. For example, current network ID management system cannot handle so many new terminals; there is no agreed security standards for IoT manufacturers to follow when designing their products. The whole IoT industry is expecting the breakthrough in network infrastructure and the development of novel security mechanisms that can enable the flexible, secure and reliable access and management of IoT devices. Bitcoin, first released in 2009, breeds the decentralized Blockchain technology. The decentralization, anonymity and proof of security characteristics of Blockchain can prevent collusion and single point failure of a centralized server. We believe that the application of Blockchain into the IoT system can clear the obstacles facing the development of IoT architecture and security. To this end, we propose an out-of-band two-factor authentication scheme for IoT devices based on Blockchain infrastructure. We implemented the IoT and Blockchain integrated system with Eris Blockchain and equivalent computing devices to emulate IoT devices. The overheads to run Blockchain and smart contract services on the emulator devices are measured. The BeagleBone Black and Raspberry Pi 3 nodes have an average memory usage of 29.5M, and the CPU usage of 29.55% and 13.35%, respectively.