Blockchain-Based Data Dissemination Scheme for 5G-Enabled Softwarized UAV Networks

Abstract

Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) are widely used in applications such as surveillance, healthcare, rescue, and crowdsensing. However, the network management of these applications is quite challenging, given the mobility of UAVs. In this scenario, the network softwarization, which decouples the hardware from the network control functions, becomes essential. Moreover, the fifth-generation (5G) communication network is used to disseminate the data from controller-to-UAV and UAV-to-Internet of Things (IoT) enabled devices. However, handling the security and privacy of data against the eavesdropper is a challenging aspect that needs to be resolved efficiently. Most of the solutions presented in the literature are based on a centralized architecture having a single point of failure and are also vulnerable to various security attacks such as controller hijacking and man-in-the-middle attacks. Motivated by these facts, we present a blockchain-based secure data dissemination scheme for softwarized UAV networks. The proposed scheme can detect an eavesdropper, analyze malicious data, and mitigate various security attacks on the SDN controller. The performance analysis shows that the proposed scheme achieves superior results in detecting the eavesdropper and anomalous data before adding them into the blockchain compared to other state-of-the-art schemes.