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Blockchain Technology for Secure IoT

Dr. Alex Norta, Dymaxion OÜ, Tallinn University

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Agenda

  • My quick introduction
  • Motivation: Rise of the Machine-to-Everything (M2X) Economy
  • Understanding IoT, blockchain and security
  • The relationship between IoT, data, blockchain and security
  • Application cases
  • Most recent research results
  • Conclusions
    • open issues, limitations and future work

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My quick introduction

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https://www.researchgate.net/lab/Blockchain-Technology-Group-Alex-Norta

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Motivation: Rise of the M2X Economy

  • My quick introduction
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Understanding IoT, Blockchain & Security:

  • IoT build a bridge between the digital and physical worlds
    • without human intervention
  • IoT functionality
    • (smart) sensor-laden devices
    • autonomously exchange data across the internet
    • receiving and transmitting the data to different devices
    • allows more than one device to be connected with each other
    • create real-time linkage
  • Creation of business opportunities and opening of new markets
    • now 55 billion IoT devices by 2025 up from about 9 billion in 2017
    • nearly $US15 trillion in aggregate IoT-investment between 2017 and 2025
    • potential to improve our lives, e.g., monitoring health patients, energy-use optimization, etc.

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IoT - Internet of Things

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Understanding IoT, Blockchain & Security:

  • Significant problems of IoT
    • billions of transactions per device (latency)
    • lacking standards
    • low computing power and data storage
    • network connectivity
  • Security- and privacy problems, examples:
    • Amazon's Alexa spying on conversations
    • hackable heart pacemaker
    • hacked security cameras
    • hacked baby monitor
    • two-thirds of consumers think IoT devices are 'creepy'

IoT - Internet of Things

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Understanding IoT, Blockchain & Security:

  • Currently a centralized model for IoT-systems
    • connects only to identified- and verified devices through cloud services that have high data-storage capabilities
    • high maintenance costs
    • extra infrastructure added with best IoT-solutions
    • if a number of IoT-devices is interconnected at a time
      • number of communication increases
      • economic scalability-engineering issues
      • if these issues go beyond a limit, disruption of cloud services occur leading to security issues
  • Solution lies in a decentralized network!

IoT - Internet of Things

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Understanding IoT, Blockchain & Security:

  • Blockchain built to underpin and authenticate cryptocurrency transactions
  • Accepted by many businesses, researchers, and customers for its underlying framework in crypto assets
    • popularity of Blockchain to increase up to 20 billion $ by 2024
    • 15% of banks will soon adopt Blockchain to overcome security issues
    • EU blockchain initiatives
  • Blockchain is a ‘cryptographically secured, immutable distributed ledger technology.’
    • encryption and cryptography are the very essences of blockchain technology
    • strong public/private-key cryptograph
    • strong cryptographic hash

Blockchain

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Understanding IoT, Blockchain & Security:

  • Whitepaper of Satoshi Nakamoto

Blockchain

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Understanding IoT, Blockchain & Security:

  • Whitepaper of Satoshi Nakamoto

Blockchain

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Understanding IoT, Blockchain & Security:

  • Decentralized approach
    • does not require a third-party presence
    • blocks are the key concept of blockchain technology
      • small sets of occurred transactions
      • each new block stores a reference of the previous transaction by including a SHA-256 hash of the previous transaction
      • creates a ‘chain‘ of blocks
      • blocks are computationally difficult to create
      • generation requires mining (time/resource consuming)
      • to tamper one block: tamper previous block, follow the chain
      • tamper resistant blockchain

Blockchain

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Understanding IoT, Blockchain & Security:

  • Nodes in the blockchain verify themselves at every entry
    • creates a genuine entry
    • information once entered in blocks cannot be changed
    • cryptographic algorithms for validation:
      • proof of work, proof of stake, and many more by now
  • Adding a transaction
    • everyone in the network validates through an algorithm
    • takes a lot of processing time to create even a single block
    • information is linked as chains with reference to previously added data in blocks
    • approved transactions are gathered into a block
    • blocks are distributed to each node in the network
    • new block and successive blocks are validated with a single fingerprint corresponding to the previous block

Blockchain

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Understanding IoT, Blockchain & Security:

  • Participating nodes can see the blocks (pseudonymous)
    • can not see the actual content of the transaction
    • protected by private keys
  • Each block contains the cryptographic hash of previous block timestamp and transaction data
  • Blockchain records all the entries in different blocks across the chain
  • Replicates copies of the ledger across a network of independent nodes
    • blockchain is carrying the useful information needed by more than one source
    • data is scattered all along the chain
  • Smart contracts
    • Turing-complete language in �protocol layer on blockchain
    • potentially solves issues of scalability,
    • reliability, privacy, security, trust, authentication

Blockchain

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Understanding IoT, Blockchain & Security:

  • Ethereum whitepaper

Blockchain

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Understanding IoT, Blockchain & Security:

  • Public smart-contract systems (Ethereum)
    • allow any person, or system to
      • access and view the ledger, propose adding new data blocks to the ledger
      • validate transactions by following established protocols
    • operate without any central authority
    • parties having little-, or no knowledge of each other
  • Permissioned/private smart-contract systems (Hyperledger)
    • limit access to the ledger to certain known-, or trusted parties (verified identities)
    • governance structure and authority to
      • control access to the ledger
      • governance structure and authority to
        • control access to the ledger, apply and enforce rules
        • establish functions and the related code
        • respond to incidents, including cyber threats

Blockchain

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Understanding IoT, Blockchain & Security:

  • A small breach in the security system can allow hackers to access a whole lot of information
  • If data is stored in one location, it is easy for hackers to target

Security

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Relating IoT, Blockchain & Security:

  • IoT-security
    • increase of security costs to 20% annually by 2020
    • from 1% in 2015
  • IoT-bottlenecks and technical deficiencies
    • device autonomy
      • must be integrated in a heterogeneous IoT-system
    • virtual identity
      • creates trust issues and authentication issues
    • point-to-point communication
      • complex to coordinate and can easily be attacked
    • data integrity
      • potentially easy to compromise data

Security & IOT

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Relating IoT, Blockchain & Security:

  • Security threats for IoT
    • unauthorized physical device access
    • software attacks
      • viruses and worms, DoS attacks, man-in-the-middle attack (password)
    • harness unsecure IoT-devices to create massive DDoS attack
    • access the data streaming through an IoT-network
    • impersonation, device spoofing
  • Today, solutions often revolve around identity management & encryption
  • IoT-data protection needed throughout the device lifecycle
  • Blockchain could mitigate providing a framework, automated security and attack prevention

Security & IOT

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Relating IoT, Blockchain & Security:

  • Blockchain is a fully decentralized system
  • Centralization architecture of IoT is a single point of failure
  • Secure infrastructure is far from the centralized model
  • Every centralized network is potentially insecure
    • user’s- and device’s identity always have to be private
    • all data must remain
      • fully private
      • confidential
      • have integrity
      • be available
  • Blockchains potentially solve these generic issues of centralized IoT-architectures

Security & Blockchain

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Relating IoT, Blockchain & Security:

  • Blockchain complements IoT
    • creating an internet of trusted things (IoTT)
    • blockchain to trace and authenticate IoT-data
    • storing the IoT-data on a blockchain
  • Every IoT-node
    • can be registered on a blockchain with an ID
    • uniquely identify a device in a universal namespace
    • for a device to connect another device, use the blockchain ID as URL
      • use IoT-device’s local blockchain wallet to raise an identity request
      • send to the target device
      • target device uses blockchain services to validate the signature using the public key of the sender
  • Yields M2M authentication without the need of any centralized arbitrator, or service

Blockchain & IoT

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Relating IoT, Blockchain & Security:

  • Blockchains promise standardization across different parts of IoT
    • tracking millions of connected devices
    • lifecycle tracking of IoT-devices: list a history of connected equipment
    • coordination between devices
  • Decentralized IoT-systems with trust
    • nodes reach a consensus to approve transactions
  • Blockchains coordinate the transactional layer of an IoT-ecosystem
  • Potentially solving the problems in IoT-security
    • scalability
    • privacy and confidence

Blockchain & IoT

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Relating IoT, Blockchain & Security:

  • Blockchains problems for IoT-system use
    • amount of data processed by IoT-systems is enormous
    • latency due to blockchain
      • ledger replication introduces latency
      • acquiring a block may consume extra time
      • not acceptable in a near-time and real-time service situation
      • blockchain is not best suited for recording raw data at the source
    • blockchain scalability
      • ledger-size may lead to centralization
    • IoT processing power- and time hurdle, and storage issues
      • perform encryption algorithms for all the objects involved
      • devices may have very different computing capabilities and run heterogeneous systems
      • not all of them will be capable of running the same systems
      • very low storage capacity of most IoT-devices to store many blocks

Blockchain & IoT

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Relating IoT, Blockchain & Security:

  • Each CRUD (Create, Read, Update, or Delete) operation on IoT-data can be registered as a transaction record on a blockchain block
  • Blockchain identity
    • control access management
    • monitor the information collected by the sensors
    • greater transparency and potential convenience
    • store data in chains of transactions
      • prevents data modification when verified by authentication system
      • disallowing data duplication by any wrong data
    • no third party for data transfer between IoT-devices

Blockchain & IoT & Data

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Relating IoT, Blockchain & Security:

  • Blockchains potentially enable a resilient IoT-ecosystem
    • adopting a standardized, point-to-point communication model
      • reduce installation and maintenance costs in Big Data centers
      • reduce storage of IoT-devices
      • preventing errors in nodes due to a collapse, or attack
        • blockchains replicate and restore
    • blockchains record transactions, or digital interactions securely
      • each block registers the operations
        • with a timestamp
        • verifies that they are in the correct sequence
        • without manipulations
        • safe, auditable, transparent, potentially efficient, interruption-resistant
  • No data leaks as in centralized IoT-systems

Blockchain & IoT & Data

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Relating IoT, Blockchain & Security:

  • Multi-Factor Challenge-Set Self-Sovereign Identity Authentication (MFSSIA)

Blockchain & IoT & Data

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Relating IoT, Blockchain & Security:

  • Multi-Factor Challenge-Set Self-Sovereign Identity Authentication (MFSSIA)

Blockchain & IoT & Data

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Inspired by: Leiding B, Cap CH, Mundt T, Rashidibajgan S. Authcoin: validation and authentication in decentralized networks. arXiv preprint arXiv:1609.04955. 2016 Sep 16.

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Other Blockchain Usecases

  • Blockchains to secure IoT-systems to determine product provenance
    • easily forged products sold to unsuspecting consumers
    • track the integrity of a food, e.g., baby formula, wine
    • Microchip-embedded labels & stored on blockchains
    • product-tracking lifecycle
      • starts from the moment of production
      • throughout the entire supply chain
      • at the point of sale
      • during the final consumer purchase
    • by storing the data in a blockchain
      • product details can not be forged
      • ensures the integrity of the end-product
  • https://openledger.info/insights/blockchain-iot-use-cases/

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Application Cases: Blockchain in e-Healthcare

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Application Cases: Counterfeit Prevention

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Application Cases: Facility Management

Commercial Real Estate

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Application Cases: Energy Management

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Latest Research Results

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Latest Research Results

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Latest Research Results

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Latest Research Results

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Conclusions

  • IoT-systems with centralized architecture are a single point of failure
  • Conceptual security properties exist:
    • confidentiality, integrity, availability + (privacy, authentication, non-repudiation)
  • Blockchain-technology for framework securing IoT-systems for large-data management
  • Limitations, open issues and future work
    • the current performance and scalability of IoT are incompatible with blockchain functions
    • new type of blockchain needed for predicted 55 billion connected IoT-devices
    • novel consensus- and validation algorithms needed for IoT peer-to-peer communications
      • IoT-platforms are a massive source of raw data
      • need to
        • combine and understand unstructured data
        • extract intelligence, advanced analytics
        • extract actionable intelligence for decision-making

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