Blockchain-based secure communication in smart cities

Abstract

The smart city aims for analyzing big data collected from massive Internet of Things (IoT) devices deployed across the city, to get an understanding of connected society, and improve the services provided to the citizens. The rapid development of 5G and beyond communication technologies, IoT, cloud computing, mobile edge computing, and interconnected networks has led to a new digital urban environment (i.e., smart city). Despite several potential benefits, the smart city environment has a major challenge of information security and privacy. A comprehensive analysis of architecture and key elements of smart city along with security and privacy requirements is provided in this chapter. We argue that distributed ledger technology (blockchain) can be used for secure communication in the smart city. Blockchain-based security mechanisms applied to different aspects of the smart city are discussed in detail. Some case studies are presented for smart cities where blockchain has been applied. We also highlight some open issues and future research directions for blockchain-based smart city environments.