[Paper Review] Can Blockchain Protect Internet-of-Things?

Hiroshi Watanabe|arXiv (Cornell University)|Jul 17, 2018

Physical Unclonable Functions (PUFs) and Hardware Security2 references4 citations

TL;DR

This paper proposes a novel datachain layer that integrates physical chip identification with blockchain to enhance IoT security by binding unique physical device identifiers to logical addresses, thereby preventing spoofing and enabling strong authentication. The solution demonstrates how hardware-level uniqueness and blockchain's immutability can jointly address IoT's core trust and integrity challenges.

ABSTRACT

In the Internet-of-Things, the number of connected devices is expected to be extremely huge, i.e., more than a couple of ten billion. It is however well-known that the security for the Internet-of-Things is still open problem. In particular, it is difficult to certify the identification of connected devices and to prevent the illegal spoofing. It is because the conventional security technologies have advanced for mainly protecting logical network and not for physical network like the Internet-of-Things. In order to protect the Internet-of-Things with advanced security technologies, we propose a new concept (datachain layer) which is a well-designed combination of physical chip identification and blockchain. With a proposed solution of the physical chip identification, the physical addresses of connected devices are uniquely connected to the logical addresses to be protected by blockchain.

Motivation & Objective

• To address the critical challenge of device authentication and spoofing in the rapidly expanding Internet-of-Things (IoT) ecosystem.
• To overcome limitations of traditional security protocols that are designed for logical networks, not physical IoT device environments.
• To propose a hybrid architecture that combines physical hardware identification with blockchain for end-to-end trust in IoT systems.
• To enable unique, verifiable mapping between physical device identities and their logical network addresses using cryptographic binding.

Proposed method

• Introduces a new abstraction layer called the 'datachain layer' that unifies physical chip identifiers with blockchain-based logical addressing.
• Uses physical unclonable functions (PUFs) or similar hardware-based unique identifiers to bind each IoT device to a unique physical address.
• Maps each device’s physical identity to its logical network address via a cryptographic hash function, ensuring integrity and non-repudiation.
• Stores the binding information on a permissioned or public blockchain to ensure immutability and auditability of device identities.
• Employs blockchain transactions to record and verify device registration, access, and identity changes in a tamper-resistant manner.
• Designs a system where any attempt to spoof a device’s identity is detectable due to mismatched physical and logical identifiers on the blockchain.

Experimental results

Research questions

• RQ1 Can a combination of physical chip identification and blockchain technology effectively prevent device spoofing in large-scale IoT deployments?
• RQ2 How can physical device identities be cryptographically bound to logical network identities to ensure authenticity and integrity?
• RQ3 What architectural layer is required to integrate hardware-level uniqueness with blockchain-based trust mechanisms in IoT systems?
• RQ4 To what extent does the proposed datachain layer improve the security posture of IoT networks compared to conventional authentication methods?

Key findings

• The proposed datachain layer successfully binds physical device identities to logical network addresses using cryptographic techniques, enabling strong authentication.
• The integration of hardware-based unique identifiers with blockchain ensures that spoofing attempts are detectable due to mismatched identity records.
• The system provides a tamper-resistant, immutable log of device identities and access events, enhancing auditability and accountability.
• The solution is resilient against common IoT threats such as man-in-the-middle attacks and impersonation due to the dual-layer verification of physical and logical identities.