Block Chain Based Authorization and Access Control Mechanisms for IoT Environments: Challenges and Opportunities

Abstract

Internet of Things (IoT) involves interconnecting smart devices for data collection and making intelligent decisions where, the usual devices become autonomous and smart. With the swift and fast paced developments in the area of smart cities, smart homes, and smart everything the Internet of Things (IoT) is creating an exceptional role that has scope for immense growth and potential. Its objective is the seamless integration of digital and physical worlds into one ecosystem that would lead to the latest intelligent era of the Internet. This state of the art technology can offer huge potential for businesses and offer opportunities for already existent areas like healthcare, energy etc. Yet due to insufficient security techniques IoT is not completely fool proof against security breaches and privacy issues. Since IoT is made up of devices that are resource- constrained and it has a complex environment, which makes enforcement of security measures even more complicated and tricky. This is where Blockchain’s (BC) “security by design” comes in; that is capable of tackling IoT’s foremost security requirements. Features like transparency, data encryption, auditability, operational resilience and immutability can help remove IoT’s architectural shortcomings. This paper focuses on this relationship and surveys the most relevant work in this area, for analyzing how blockchain is capable of solving the issues related to authorization and access control for IoT environments.