Volume 10 - Issue 3
A Survey of Secure Internet of Things in Relation to Blockchain
- Morteza Alizadeh
Pervasive and Mobile Computing and Laboratory Lulea University of Technology, Skelleftea, Sweden
morteza.alizadeh@ltu.se
- Karl Andersson
Pervasive and Mobile Computing and Laboratory Lulea University of Technology, Skelleftea, Sweden
karl.andersson@ltu.se
- Olov Schelen
Pervasive and Mobile Computing Laboratory, Lulea University of Technology, Lulea, Sweden
olov.schelen@ltu.se
Keywords: Distributed Systems, Blockchain, Internet of Things, IoT Architectures, Security, Attacks
Abstract
Distributed ledgers and blockchain technologies can improve system security and trustworthiness by
providing immutable replicated histories of data. Blockchain is a linked list of blocks containing
digitally signed transactions, a cryptographic hash of the previous block, and a timestamp stored in a
decentralized and distributed network. The Internet of Things (IoT) is one of the application domains
in which security based on blockchain is discussed. In this article, we review the structure and architectures
of distributed IoT systems and explain the motivations, challenges, and needs of blockchain
to secure such systems. However, there are substantial threats and attacks to blockchain that must be
understood, as well as suitable approaches to mitigate them. We, therefore, survey the most common
attacks to blockchain systems and the solutions to mitigate them, with the objective of assessing how
malicious these attacks are in the IoT context.