A Novel On-demand Trust-based Access Control Framework for Resource-constrained IoT System

Access control mechanism in IoT is a challenge in itself owing to the massive scale and heterogeneity of IoT devices that are connected. The task becomes more difficult when there are resource-constrained devices in the network. Employing a resourceful trusted third party as a centralized authority for access control and storage of data is no more an ideal solution due to possible breach of privacy and single point of failure. It also hampers the scalability of the IoT system. The On-demand Trust-based Access Control(OTAC) framework proposes a distributed trust-based blockchain model optimized for access control in resource-constrained environments. OTAC offers a differential level of security and privacy on a demand basis. The hierarchical structure of OTAC framework gives it a decentralized architecture. OTAC uses a customized trust-based consensus, immune to Byzantine attack and hence gives it an edge over other blockchain-based access control schemes.