Integration of blockchain and IoT: An enhanced security perspective

Blockchain (BC), a by-product of Bitcoin cryptocurrency, has gained immense and wide scale popularity for its applicability in various diverse domains – especially in multifaceted non-monetary systems. By adopting cryptographic techniques such as hashing and asymmetric encryption-along with distributed consensus approach, a Blockchain based distributed ledger not only becomes highly secure but also immutable and thus eliminates the need for any third-party intermediators. On the contrary, innumerable IoT (Internet of Things) devices are increasingly being added to the network. This phenomenon poses higher risk in terms of security and privacy. It is thus extremely important to address the security aspects of the growing IoT ecosystem. This paper explores the applicability of BC for ensuring enhanced security and privacy in the IoT ecosystem. Recent research articles and projects/applications were surveyed to assess the implementation of BC for IoT Security and identify associated challenges and propose solutions for BC enabled enhanced security for the IoT ecosystem. © 2020 by the author(s). Published by Annals of Emerging Technologies in Computing (AETiC).