Fast and Efficient Security Scheme for Blockchain-Based IoT Networks

Internet of Things (IoT) has become widely used nowadays and tremendous increase in the number of users raises its security requirements as well. The constraints on resources such as low computational capabilities and power requirements demand lightweight cryptosystems. Conventional algorithms are not applicable in IoT network communications because of the constraints mentioned above. In this work, a novel and efficient scheme for providing security in IoT applications is introduced. The scheme proposes how security can be enhanced in a distributed IoT application by providing multilevel protection and dynamic key generation in the data uploading and transfer phases. Existing works rely on a single key for communication between sensing device and the attached gateway node. In proposed scheme, this session key is updated after each session and this is done by applying principles of cellular automata. The proposed system provides multilevel security by using incomparable benefits of blockchain, dynamic key and random number generation based on cellular automata. The same was implemented and tested with the widely known security protocol verification tool called Automated Validation of Internet Security Protocols and Applications (AVISPA). Results show that the scheme is secure against various attacks. The proposed scheme has been compared with related schemes and the result analysis shows that the new scheme is fast and efficient also.