Blockchain-Based Access Control Techniques for IoT Applications

The Internet of Things is gaining more importance in the present era of Internet technology. It is considered as one of the most important technologies of everyday life. Moreover, IoT systems are ceaselessly growing with more and more devices. They are scalable, dynamic, and distributed, hence the origin of the crucial security requirements in IoT. One of the most challenging issues that the IoT community must handle recently is how to ensure an access control approach that manages the security requirements of such a system. Traditional access control technologies are not suitable for a large-scale and distributed network structure. Most of them are based on a centralized approach, where the use of a trusted third party (TTP) is obligatory. Furthermore, the emergence of blockchain technology has allowed researchers to come up with a solution for these security issues. This technology is highly used to record access control data. Additionally, it has great potential for managing access control requests. This paper proposed a blockchain-based access control taxonomy according to the access control nature: partially decentralized and fully decentralized. Furthermore, it presents an overview of blockchain-based access control solutions proposed in different IoT applications. Finally, the article analyzes the proposed works according to certain criteria that the authors deem important.