A Holistic Study on the Use of Blockchain Technology in CPS and IoT Architectures Maintaining the CIA Triad in Data Communication

Abstract Blockchain-based cyber-physical systems (CPSs) and the blockchain Internet of things (BIoT) are two major focuses of the modern technological revolution. Currently we have security attacks like distributed denial-of-service (DDoS), address resolution protocol (ARP) spoofing attacks, various phishing and configuration threats, network congestion, etc. on the existing CPS and IoT architectures. This study conducts a complete survey on the flaws of the present centralized IoT system’s peer-to-peer (P2P) communication and the CPS architecture’s machine-to-machine (M2M) communication. Both these architectures could use the inherent consensus algorithms and cryptographic advantages of blockchain technology. To show how blockchain technology can resolve the flaws of the existing CPS and IoT architectures while maintaining confidentiality, integrity, and availability (the CIA triad), we conduct a holistic survey here on this topic and discuss the research focus in the domain of the BIoT. Then we analyse the similarities and dissimilarities of blockchain technology in IoT and CPS architectures. Finally, it is well understood that one should explore whether blockchain technology will give advantages to CPS and IoT applications through a decision support system (DSS) with a relevant mathematical model, so here we provide the DSS with such a model for this purpose.