A Blockchain-Based Architecture for Access Control Management of IoT Applications

Abstract

Internet of Things (IoT) integrates the physical world with the Internet to facilitate sharing data among entities. These IoT applications bring security and management challenges. In this paper, using blockchain technology, an end-to-end secure architecture is proposed for an auditable tamper-proof log of sensors' data and events. A Role Based Access Control policy is enforced using smart contracts that controls access to both sensors' data and executing commands on actuators. For confidentiality, the data is kept encrypted in transit and at rest. In addition, the data is stored off-the-chain in a distributed content-based addressable network, while its address and access records are stored at the blockchain. The proposed design is suitable for real-time and mission-critical IoT applications. Finally, a proof-of-concept implementation shows the efficiency and scalability of the proposed architecture.