Adding Hardware Security into IoT-Blockchain Platforms

Blockchain is a technology that could help secure Internet of Things (IoT) systems and allow for easy interactions and communications among IoT devices without compromising their security. However, many nodes in IoT blockchain platforms lack adequate security at the hardware level; this is an important security aspect that can enhance both node security and overall trust in the platform. In this paper, we evaluate the viability of integrating a hardware secure module (HSM) and a hardware wallet (HW) into IoT blockchain applications. We provide a performance evaluation regarding the energy consumption of nodes that are equipped with HSM and HW and conduct security analyses. Finally, we discuss an example application, namely, secure community energy trading based on the deployment of an honesty-based distributed proof of authority (HDPoA) consensus algorithm where all nodes are equipped with an HSM and HW.