Privacy and Security Issues in Blockchain based IoT Systems: Challenges and Opportunities

Blockchain is a developing technology which provides data storage, secure transactions and establishing trust in an open environment. Blockchain is widely implemented in cryptocurrency systems like Bitcoins, smart contracts, smart grids over IoT devices etc. Blockchain also has wide applications in healthcare, automobile industries, private and public sectors. This growing popularity of Blockchain is luring hackers to perform various cyber-attacks in order to detect vulnerabilities in the applied Blockchain system. A vulnerable block chain system is open for network breaches, data thefts and information manipulations. Therefore, it is important to design a Blockchain system with proper security, privacy and trust management. However, increasing security and privacy in Blockchain reduces its performance because security and privacy policies are overhead to the applied Blockchain system. Therefore, it is also important to optimize the performance of Blockchain system with proper implementation of security and privacy. This chapter discuss the current scenarios of security, privacy and trust issues in Blockchain. The chapter also discuss the proposed solutions regarding these issues. Further, the chapter discuss the performance analysis on increasing security and privacy in the Blockchain technology and proposed optimizations in the literature. This chapter is then conclude by providing few research directions for improving security, privacy and trust in Blockchain technology while keeping its performance optimized.

Blockchain technology provides a data structure with inherent security properties that include cryptography, decentralization, and consensus, which ensure trust in transactions. It covers widely applicable usages, such as in intelligent manufacturing, finance, the Internet of things (IoT), medicine and health, and many different areas, especially in medical health data security and privacy protection areas. Its natural attributes, such as contracts and consensus mechanisms, have leading-edge advantages in protecting data confidentiality, integrity, and availability. The security issues are gradually revealed with in-depth research and vigorous development. Unlike traditional paper storage methods, modern medical records are stored electronically. Blockchain technology provided a decentralized solution to the trust-less issues between distrusting parties without third-party guarantees, but the “trust-less” security through technology was easily misunderstood and hindered the security differences between public and private blockchains appropriately. The mentioned advantages and disadvantages motivated us to provide an advancement and comprehensive study regarding the applicability of blockchain technology. This paper focuses on the healthcare security issues in blockchain and sorts out the security risks in six layers of blockchain technology by comparing and analyzing existing security measures. It also explores and defines the different security attacks and challenges when applying blockchain technology, which promotes theoretical research and robust security protocol development in the current and future distributed work environment.

Nowadays, smart applications are becoming part of small-scale to large-scale industries. Smart applications are making farming, tourism and hospitality, energy sector healthcare, supply chain, and so on smarter than ever. Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT), which is also called Industry 4.0, is the new evolution in the industrial sector that includes automation and smart applications. Internet of Things (IoT) is one of the major pillars of Industry 4.0. IoT devices that collect real-time data from the environment and exchange data among themselves. However, the security and privacy of IoT devices are a major concern as data transmission happens over public networks. To handle the issues, blockchain technology (BCT) can be one of the solutions. The blockchain proved its potential in enhancing the security and privacy of Internet data with various applications. In this regard, the chapter provides an overview of the idea of incorporating blockchain in IoT to overcome the security issues of IoT systems. The main objective of this chapter is to how blockchain features overcome the security and privacy threat in IoT system. Initially, the chapter focuses on several security and privacy concerns in IoT. We associate the features of the BCT with the challenges faced in IoT with respect to security and privacy issues. Some of the applications of blockchain in IoT have also been discussed that primarily target security and privacy issues of IoT. The chapter also focuses on challenges and future works in blockchain integrated with IoT infrastructure.

Recently, both the Internet of Things (IoT) and Blockchain have gained enormous adaptation and popularity in information-based systems. The inherent problem with IoT is security at each layer. Critics have often touted IoT as the Insecure Internet of Things (IIoT). Rapid growth can be seen in the requirement for designing a secure and robust model for performing regular tasks such as sensing data, processing of sensed data, storage of data or information, and mutual communication. The development of such a model, which involves conquering numerous stumbling blocks, is a little hard. Cybersecurity threats materialize every day, while older threats still linger and wait to be exploited once again. It is an unfortunate truth that IoT is also at risk from these cyber threats. The coupling of both technologies will help to create a robust infrastructure for smart things. Blockchain can be implemented at several levels, such as accessibility, automation, configuration, authentication and data protection. The salient advantages of depleting Blockchain technology in amalgamation with the IoT are constructing conviction, cutting costs, and acceleration in transactions. Secured and reliable IoT can be used in many commercial applications and industries, such as fintech, healthcare, manufacturing, supply chain management, etc. Many industry analysts are saying that Blockchain technology is proving to be a silver bullet for the IoT in terms of fears over security, privacy and reliability. Blockchain technology will not be the holy grail of cybersecurity, but it is a prevalent tool that can help to solidify IoT systems. Blockchain has shown countless prospects for technologies and systems based on IoT, where security issues are disrupting the centralized system with a single point of failure. The use of Blockchain technology in IoT can increase the security aspect and user access management mechanisms, which further leads to a robust mechanism. However, these two fields of IoT and Blockchain are relatively new, and a lot of research is going on in these fields. Moreover, the combination of these two technologies will come up with new challenges also. Therefore, there is a need to review the techniques that are already in place to carry out further scoping, so in this chapter, the researchers have tried to focus on the review of technologies germinating due to the coupling of the IoT with Blockchain technology. Some case studies based on the amalgamation of these two technologies are also discussed in this chapter. The security mechanism is based on three main factors: Confidentiality, Integrity and Availability. These factors have been considered when taking any research in this domain into consideration. Researchers have also proposed a model of the IoT integrated with Blockchain ledger for the dissemination of information with an abstract form of security. There are more than 20 techniques invented by various researchers that have been analyzed based on various attack vectors, and the corresponding reviews are discussed in detail. Ten main attacks are also discussed with respect to the 20 techniques used in the proposed coupled technology. As well as the security challenge, other challenges like scalability, storage, processing power, time complexity, the complexity of hybrid structure, the need for skilled manpower, and many other challenges are also discussed in this chapter. A consolidated review of the research carried out in the domain of various Blockchain-based IoT systems is also discussed in depth.

Internet of things (IoT) is seen as combinations of various communication technologies and embedded equipment such as sensors, micro-controllers, radio-frequency identification, wireless devices, etc., which work as a single unit to achieve a specific task in a smart way, i.e., with less human intervention, and decisions are made automatically. IoT is used in many sectors such as smart home automation, smart grids, smart cities, vehicular networks, etc. Due to easy accessibility and reachability to such devices or networks, there are severe security and privacy issues in IoT. User authentication, access control mechanism, confidentiality and data correctness are a few of the major concerns among them. Though it looks like conventional security concerns, but due to (i) the dynamic nature of IoT, (ii) the resource-scarce nature of the devices and (iii) different standards and communication stacks involved, traditional network security countermeasures may not be applied directly to IoT. In recent years, usage of blockchain technology to address various security issues, specifically data correctness, has opened up a facet for IoT to explore the option of using blockchain in IoT. Researchers have started investigating the same. Primitively, blockchain is a non-editable, decentralized and cryptographically secured ledger that is tolerant against byzantine failure. This nature of blockchain makes it an attractive alternative to address security issues such as data integrity, entity authentication, etc. Also, in an IoT environment, where devices are spread across a vast geographical area, it requires a decentralized validation mechanism that a blockchain provides. In this paper, we intend to make an exhaustive survey of various researches being carried out to secure IoT networks using blockchain technology. We also aim to provide a summarized view for various prospective research directions in IoT which can be addressed by blockchain technology.

From the beginning of crypto currency in 2008, blockchain technology rise as progressive technology. Block chain technology was began as a core technology of bitcoin, but it is growing to numerous fields such as, security of Internet of Things (IoT), transport sector, robotics, smart energy, banking sector, industries, insurance, medical etc. Currently more businesses are moving through online system. The digitization of data can be carried through the centralization and decentralization process with higher protection. All the data can be stored through blocks with transaction history as block chain. Unfortunately, In a block chain the transaction can be simplified with peer-peer network that excludes the involvement of third party. Today as a world is going towards automation and smart objects internet of things(IoT) has gained popularity due to its usage in smart homes, smart farming, and smart city projects around world. Unfortunately, internet of things devices possess, low compatibility, high complexity, limited computing power, low security, low storage capability and network capacity therefore internet of things devices are more prone to attacks than other components such as phones, ipods, tablets, or PCs. This paper focus on identifying significant security and privacy issues for IoT, proposing anew IoT model through block chain technology and implementing the proposed model for solving IoT issues through block chain technology. Block chain technology can be a key empowering influence to take care of numerous IoT privacy and security issues. Finally describe the future work directions.

In 2008–2009, a distributed technology “blockchain” was introduced in cryptocurrency (as Bitcoin). Blockchain is a distributed consensus scheme which allows any transactions or any other data, and stores it securely with verifying by peer users (users available in a network), i.e. without the need of any centralized authority (CA). The blockchain concept is purely distributed and decentralized in nature, and is receiving attraction from many areas and sectors (for protecting data or providing reliable communications). Initially, Bitcoin (a popular cryptocurrency) used well-known proof of work hash-based mechanism to make respective Bitcoin (a cryptocurrency) more foolproof. Blockchain provides different functional and security guarantees, so it can bring more change to a large number of systems and businesses (or applications). In general, essential building blocks of blockchain security has decentralization structure, security by block, and encryption via consensus mechanisms or proof of work—but due to lot of popularity of this technology among many applications, several serious issues like security and privacy are raised in this technology. Security and privacy are general problems in blockchain technology of today’s era (raised in every computing environment). Scalability, security, privacy, and sustainability are essential issues in blockchain technology. The future world requires distributed trust and everything in distributed form, including security and privacy issues and the need to provide a state of art work (for each available technology or application). Our work will be more useful to academia and the blockchain community to do some innovative work to solve complex problems and to improve industries and businesses productivity. Among all existing technologies (in communication), blockchain technology guarantees more reliable and expedient services. In blockchain technology, it is important to consider the security and privacy issues and challenges behind the innovative technology. In this chapter, we provide a complete introduction of blockchain and its uses in several applications, analyzing problems by deploying newer cryptographic techniques and mechanisms to enabling use cases like privacy, preserving file storage, and security of user information. Also, several research gaps, as well as the challenges and opportunities in blockchain technology, are discussed. In summary, we provide comprehensive flow regarding blockchain technology which has not been provided yet by anyone. In this chapter, challenges and opportunities from the prospective of security and privacy of data in blockchain will be discussed (with respect to the security and privacy community point of view). Furthermore, we will provide some future trends which blockchain technology may adapt in near future (in brief).

The technological advancements in the network technologies that deal with interconnected computing devices has led to the dramatic increase in the number of Internet of Things (IoT) devices. It promises to improve the convenience of our lives by leveraging to modernize the way day to day items are connected to various elements of existence by converting it to smart object. However, with the unprecedented convenience, accessibility, and efficiency, IoT has caused acute security and privacy threats in recent years, and it must be addressed properly. Due to the massive scale and distributed nature of IoT networks, overlooking these privacy and security issues will negatively impact many elements of our existence that involves our surroundings, and these effects will influence our own masses too. The national or jurisdictional boundaries are not restricted to the centralized cloud infrastructure that provides interconnectivity of IoT items, hence maintaining robustness, authentication and security becomes crucial. Recently, the development of blockchain technology is a plausible solution to offer such features. Security, authentication, and maintenance issues can be solved by the secure decentralization of blockchain and overcome the current IoT ecosystem's drawbacks. This paper highlights the IoT features and presents a IoT security and privacy problems are examined and classified in accordance with the IoT layered architecture. Further, we explore the IoT security and privacy challenges and examine blockchain technology towards a solution that help solve many of the IoT privacy and security issues

We live in a world where everything is connected via the Internet of Things (IoT). Despite this, IoT privacy remains a serious challenge, particularly due to IoT networks' vast scale and dispersed nature. Using protected solutions, such as incorporating blockchain technology into privacy-based services, is one approach to privacy-related concerns. Various Internet of Things security and authentication issues have been resolved by the decentralized nature of blockchain technology. This paper examines how blockchain technology mitigates the security and privacy concerns of IoT networks. In addition, we investigate the structure and uses of blockchain technology for recommender system privacy and trust management solutions. The limitations of adopting the blockchain technology also discussed. From the analysis of literature works, the blockchain technology could be able to circumvent IoT limitations such as data security and privacy. In addition, it may offer IoT customers distributed storage, transparency, trust, safe distributed IoT networks, and privacy and security assurance.

Blockchain technology for security issues and challenges in IoT

The healthcare system of today is considered complex and expensive. This burden of complexity can be minimized by improving healthcare record management, utilizing insurance agencies, and leveraging blockchain technologies. Initially, blockchain implementations were developed to eliminate the dependency on centralized companies and or financial institutions for account-related money exchanges. Healthcare records, insurance billing, and smart contracts could be enhanced by using blockchain technology, which enables stable access, security of data, and the centralization of transactional information. Blockchain technology is most attractive due to its features of immutability, privacy, transparency, decentralization, and distribute ledger. The main concern is that healthcare records containing confidential patient information are very complicated because they pose a privacy risk. The medical system would be better prepared to deal with public health threats if it had direct access to patient data during deadly disease outbreaks. A concise study is provided in this paper on blockchain technology in healthcare. The paper deeply works on the security and traceability issues in healthcare and pharmaceutical industries. This paper also presents blockchain as one of the complete solutions for security and traceability in healthcare and pharmaceutical industries.

SummaryInternet of Things (IoT) is a novel paradigm, which not only facilitates a large number of devices to be ubiquitously connected over the Internet but also provides a mechanism to remotely control these devices. The IoT is pervasive and is almost an integral part of our daily life. These connected devices often obtain user's personal data and store it online. The security of collected data is a big concern in recent times. As devices are becoming increasingly connected, privacy and security issues become more and more critical and these need to be addressed on an urgent basis. IoT implementations and devices are eminently prone to threats that could compromise the security and privacy of the consumers, which, in turn, could influence its practical deployment. In recent past, some research has been carried out to secure IoT devices with an intention to alleviate the security concerns of users. There have been research on blockchain technologies to tackle the privacy and security issues of the collected data in IoT. The purpose of this paper is to highlight the security and privacy issues in IoT systems. To this effect, the paper examines the security issues at each layer in the IoT protocol stack, identifies the under‐lying challenges and key security requirements and provides a brief overview of existing security solutions to safeguard the IoT from the layered context.

Internet of Things (IoT) is one of the most powerful platforms that incorporates several other technological components within itself. The IoT ecosystem comprises devices, communications, protocols, analytics, cloud, automation, etc. Its magnitude keeps on increasing with the addition of tools and services. While IoT has many advantages like connectivity, efficiency, and convenience, it is a known fact that privacy and security issues are prevalent in the IoT network. To minimize the security and privacy issues, we propose a blockchain-based solution. In this paper, we design policies based on smart contacts, which is a self-enforcing agreement embedded in computer code managed by a blockchain. We propose three different policies: Hardware and Device Security Policies, Access and Authentication policies, and Application security for the IoT network. Since blockchain-based solutions ensure trust and stability, this may be one of the most robust techniques to alleviate the IoT network’s security and privacy issues. Also, we calculate the throughput and latency of the IoT enabled blockchain network and compare the power consumption of the IoT device at the time of data request with other proposed systems.

The Internet of Things (IoT) promoted a common operating picture (COP) through all modern applications. The COP is takes place only accomplished by the developments seen in wireless sensor network devices that have been able to connect through the network, sharing information, and conducting further analysis. In IoT, knowledge sharing and authentication of data through the central server and is hence vulnerable to security and privacy problems. System spoofing, false authentication, less data sharing reliability may take place. As part of IoT, Blockchain (BC) technology is integrated to solve these security and privacy issues by replacing the idea of the central server. This paper discusses the potential protection and privacy threats of IoT component activity and explores how it relates to distributed ledger-based blockchain (DL-BC) technologies. . Blockchain implementations have explicitly been studied here with regard to focused sectors and categories. This paper also discusses Blockchain technology, its contribution, and challenges specific to IoT.

Internet of Things (IoT) is an interconnected wireless network where smart nodes (IoT devices) interact with each other in order to exchange data through the communicating medium. IoT technology has become important for people to build smart systems upon the use of technology. Internet of things is realized by the idea of free flow of information among various low-power embedded devices that use the Internet to communicate with one another. In the recent past IoT have grown rapidly and have become an extension of existing universal Internet. It can be easily anticipated that large scale systems equipped with numerous sensors will prevail in our society. With the rise of the Internet of Things (IoT) technology, the number of IoT devices/sensors has also increased significantly Billions of smart devices connected to IoT environment can communicate among themselves using sensors and actuators. This rapid growth and inclusion of IoT technologies in our daily life are facing challenges since most of the devices specially sensors in IoT network are resource constraint in terms of energy, computation capability, etc. Data collected from these sensors sent through the middleware like gateway, routers, etc. to the cloud servers or toward various analytical engine for meaningful knowledge discovery. These processed data and knowledge have lately attracted huge attention, and organizations are excited about the business value of the data that will be generated by deploying such networks. With this advent of IoT it has also attracted various security and privacy concerns. Due to the structurally open IoT architecture and the tremendous usage of the paradigm itself, causes to generate many unconventional security issues for the existing networking technologies. Moreover, since sensor nodes are cooperative within the IoT network, this sharing of data can create new challenges that can disrupt the systems’ regular functionalities and operations. In another aspect the growth of IoT technologies has enhanced by assimilating them with cloud computing and the era IoT-cloud has emerged. With these, some new class of security and privacy issues have also introduced. Furthermore, the commercialization of the IoT has led to several public security concerns including threats of cyber-attacks, privacy issues, and fraud crimes. This chapter gathers the needed information to give a complete picture of security issues and problems faced in IoT communication. In this chapter, we detail the major security as well as privacy issues more specifically. An extensive description of security threats and challenges across the different layers of the architecture of IoT systems is represented. The issues related to IoT-cloud is also highlighted. The light will be shed on the state-of-the-art solutions to the emerging and latest security issues in this field. We hereby present the evolving resolve policies as mined from the research work of various authors in this field that will expose the several research areas in IoT-cloud era.KeywordsInternet of ThingsIoT securityPrivacyCloud server