Permissioned Blockchain-Based Security for SDN in IoT Cloud Networks

The advancement in cloud networks has enabled connectivity of both traditional networked elements and new devices from all walks of life, thereby forming the Internet of Things (IoT). In an IoT setting, improving and scaling network components as well as reducing cost is essential to sustain exponential growth. In this domain, software-defined networking (SDN) is revolutionizing the network infrastructure with a new paradigm. SDN splits the control/routing logic from the data transfer/forwarding. This splitting causes many issues in SDN, such as vulnerabilities of DDoS attacks. Many solutions (including blockchain based) have been proposed to overcome these problems. In this work, we offer a blockchain-based solution that is provided in redundant SDN (load-balanced) to service millions of IoT devices. Blockchain is considered as tamper-proof and impossible to corrupt due to the replication of the ledger and consensus for verification and addition to the ledger. Therefore, it is a perfect fit for SDN in IoT Networks. Blockchain technology provides everyone with a working proof of decentralized trust. The experimental results show gain and efficiency with respect to the accuracy, update process, and bandwidth utilization.Comment: Accepted to International Conference on Advances in the Emerging Computing Technologies (AECT) 202

Achieving cybersecurity in blockchain-based systems: a survey

With The Increase In Connectivity, The Popularization Of Cloud Services, And The Rise Of The Internet Of Things (Iot), Decentralized Approaches For Trust Management Are Gaining Momentum. Since Blockchain Technologies Provide A Distributed Ledger, They Are Receiving Massive Attention From The Research Community In Different Application Fields. However, This Technology Does Not Provide With Cybersecurity By Itself. Thus, This Survey Aims To Provide With A Comprehensive Review Of Techniques And Elements That Have Been Proposed To Achieve Cybersecurity In Blockchain-Based Systems. The Analysis Is Intended To Target Area Researchers, Cybersecurity Specialists And Blockchain Developers. For This Purpose, We Analyze 272 Papers From 2013 To 2020 And 128 Industrial Applications. We Summarize The Lessons Learned And Identify Several Matters To Foster Further Research In This AreaThis work has been partially funded by MINECO, Spain grantsTIN2016-79095-C2-2-R (SMOG-DEV) and PID2019-111429RB-C21 (ODIO-COW); by CAM, Spain grants S2013/ICE-3095 (CIBERDINE),P2018/TCS-4566 (CYNAMON), co-funded by European Structural Funds (ESF and FEDER); by UC3M-CAM grant CAVTIONS-CM-UC3M; by the Excellence Program for University Researchers, Spain; and by Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas (CSIC), Spain under the project LINKA20216 (“Advancing in cybersecurity technologies”, i-LINK+ program)

Quality of Service improvements for real time multimedia applications using next generation network architectures and blockchain in Internet Service Provider cooperative scenario

Real time communications are becoming part of our daily life, requiring constrained requisites with the purpose of being enjoyed in harmony by end users. The factors ruling these requisites are Quality of Service parameters of the users' Internet connections. Achieving a satisfactory QoS level for real time communications depends on parameters that are strongly influenced by the quality of the network connections among the Internet Service Providers, which are located in the path between final users and Over The Top service providers that are supplying them with real time services. Final users can be: business people having real time videoconferences, or adopting crytpocurrencies in their exchanges, videogamers playing online games together with others residing in other countries, migrants talking with their relatives or watching their children growing up in their home countries, people with disabilities adopting tecnologies to help them, doctors performing remote surgeries, manufacturers adopting augmented reality devices to perform dangerous tasks. Each of them performing their daily activities are requiring specific QoS parameters to their ISPs, that nowadays seem to be unable to provide them with a satisfactory QoS level for these kinds of real time services. Through the adoption of next generation networks, such as the Information Centric Networking, it would be possible to overcome the QoS problems that nowadays are experienced. By adopting Blockchain technologies, in several use cases, it would be possible to improve those security aspects related to the non-temperability of information and privacy. I started this thesis analyzing next generation architectures enabling real time multimedia communications. In Software Defined Networking, Named Data Networking and Community Information Centric Networking, I highlighted potential approaches to solve QoS problems that are affecting real time multimedia applications. During my experiments I found that applications able to transmit high quality videos, such as 4k or 8k videos, or to directly interact with devices AR/VR enabled are missing for both ICN approaches. Then I proposed a REST interface for the enforcing of a specific QoS parameter, the round trip time (RTT) taking into consideration the specific use case of a game company that connects with the same telecommunication company of the final user. Supposing that the proposed REST APIs have been deployed in the game company and in the ISP, when one or more users are experiencing lag, the game company will try to ask the ISP to reduce the RTT for that specific user or that group of users. This request can be done by performing a call to a method where IP address(es) and the maximum RTT desired are passed. I also proposed other methods, through which it would be possible to retrieve information about the QoS parameters, and exchange, if necessary, an exceeding parameter in change of another one. The proposed REST APIs can also be used in more complex scenarios, where ISPs along the path are chained together, in order to improve the end to end QoS among Over The Top service provider and final users. To store the information exchanged by using the proposed REST APIs, I proposed to adopt a permissioned blockchain, analizying the ISPs cooperative use case with Hyperledger Fabric, where I proposed the adoption of the Proof of Authority consensus algorithm, to increase the throughput in terms of transactions per second. In a specific case that I examined, I am proposing a combination of Information Centric Networking and Blockchain, in an architecture where ISPs are exchanging valuable information regarding final Users, to improve their QoS parameters. I also proposed my smart contract for the gaming delay use case, that can be used to rule the communication among those ISPs that are along the path among OTT and final users. An extension of this work can be done, by defining billing costs for the QoS improvements

A Review of IoT Security and Privacy Using Decentralized Blockchain Techniques

IoT security is one of the prominent issues that has gained significant attention among the researchers in recent times. The recent advancements in IoT introduces various critical security issues and increases the risk of privacy leakage of IoT data. Implementation of Blockchain can be a potential solution for the security issues in IoT. This review deeply investigates the security threats and issues in IoT which deteriorates the effectiveness of IoT systems. This paper presents a perceptible description of the security threats, Blockchain based solutions, security characteristics and challenges introduced during the integration of Blockchain with IoT. An analysis of different consensus protocols, existing security techniques and evaluation parameters are discussed in brief. In addition, the paper also outlines the open issues and highlights possible research opportunities which can be beneficial for future research

The Applications of Blockchain To Cybersecurity

A blockchain is a decentralized public ledger facilitating secure transactions between untrusted network nodes. It has garnered significant recognition for its pivotal role in cryptocurrency systems, where it ensures secure and decentralized transaction records. Over the past decade, blockchain has attracted considerable attention from various industries, as it holds the potential to revolutionize multiple sectors, including cybersecurity. However, this field of study is relatively new, and numerous questions remain unanswered regarding the effectiveness of blockchain in cybersecurity. This research adopted a qualitative research design to investigate the current implementations of blockchain-based security and their applicability in the current cybersecurity context. Additionally, this work explored the mechanisms employed by blockchain to uphold the security triad. Findings indicate that blockchain exhibits substantial potential in addressing existing challenges in cybersecurity, particularly those related to the Internet of Things, data integrity and ownership, and network security. Nonetheless, widespread adoption faces limitations due to technological immaturity, high-cost complexity, and regulatory hurdles. Therefore, utilizing blockchain-based solutions in cybersecurity necessitates a thorough analysis of their applicability to an organization\u27s specific needs, a clear definition of implementation goals, and careful navigation of challenges

Robust, Resilient and Reliable Architecture for V2X Communication

The new developments in mobile edge computing (MEC) and vehicle-to-everything (V2X) communications has positioned 5G and beyond in a strong position to answer the market need towards future emerging intelligent transportation systems and smart city applications. The major attractive features of V2X communication is the inherent ability to adapt to any type of network, device, or data, and to ensure robustness, resilience and reliability of the network, which is challenging to realize. In this work, we propose to drive these further these features by proposing a novel robust, resilient and reliable architecture for V2X communication based on harnessing MEC and blockchain technology. A three stage computing service is proposed. Firstly, a hierarchcial computing architecture is deployed spanning over the vehicular network that constitutes cloud computing (CC), edge computing (EC), fog computing (FC) nodes. The resources and data bases can migrate from the high capacity cloud services (furthest away from the individual node of the network) to the edge (medium) and low level fog node, according to computing service requirements. Secondly, the resource allocation filters the data according to its significance, and rank the nodes according to their usability, and selects the network technology according to their physical channel characteristics. Thirdly, we propose a blockchain-based transaction service that ensures reliability. We discussed two use cases for experimental analysis, plug- in electric vehicles in smart grid scenarios, and massive IoT data services for autonomous cars. The results show that car connectivity prediction is accurate 98% of the times, where 92% more data blocks are added using micro-blockchain solution compared to the public blockchain, where it is able to reduce the time to sign and compute the proof-of-work (PoW), and deliver a low-overhead Proof-of-Stake (PoS) consensus mechanism. This approach can be considered a strong candidate architecture for future V2X, and with more general application for everything- to-everything (X2X) communications

P-IOTA: A Cloud-Based Geographically Distributed Threat Alert System That Leverages P4 and IOTA

The recent widespread novel network technologies for programming data planes are remarkably enhancing the customization of data packet processing. In this direction, the Programming Protocol-independent Packet Processors (P4) is envisioned as a disruptive technology, capable of configuring network devices in a highly customizable way. P4 enables network devices to adapt their behaviors to mitigate malicious attacks (e.g., denial of service). Distributed ledger technologies (DLTs), such as blockchain, allow secure reporting alerts on malicious actions detected across different areas. However, the blockchain suffers from major scalability concerns due to the consensus protocols needed to agree on a global state of the network. To overcome these limitations, new solutions have recently emerged. IOTA is a next-generation distributed ledger engineered to tackle the scalability limits while still providing the same security capabilities such as immutability, traceability, and transparency. This article proposes an architecture that integrates a P4-based data plane software-defined network (SDN) and an IOTA layer employed to notify about networking attacks. Specifically, we propose a fast, secure, and energy-efficient DLT-enabled architecture that combines the IOTA data structure, named Tangle, with the SDN layer to detect and notify about network threats

Analysis of IoT and Blockchain Technology for Agricultural Food Supply Chain Transactions

The Block chain is a peer to peer, distributed ledger in which members must establish consensus to record every new input and transactions that are stored by all members. Over the last decade, block chain technology has grown in popularity, attracting interest from a wide range of industries, including finance, manufacturing, energy, and government sectors, health, and agriculture supply chains, land registrations, and digital identifications (IDs). Block chain facilitates better opportunities and benefits in agriculture, as well as building trust between farmers and consumers and allowing the creation of reliable food supply chains. The Chapter discusses how block chain and smart contracts can improve productivity, transparency, and traceability in agricultural insurance, smart farming, and agricultural food supply chain transactions (AFSC). By applying Block chain agri-food supply chain tracking was made easy and won the trust from different stakeholders, which was a real benefit to the real heroes of the country. The consumer can research the history of a product they are thinking about buying and consume food in their cart, learning about the entire process from planting to harvesting, transporting, and selling. Food fraud may be reduced by using the traceability and integrity of financial information to detect untrustworthy intermediaries and business practices that exploit both independent farmers and cooperatives. The agricultural industry will be transformed by block chain for supply chain management. All phases of the agriculture supply chain are being simplified, enhancing food safety and preventing the sale of counterfeit goods. Access to agricultural finance services for farmers and companies could also be facilitated by the technology. This Paper presents a review and research challenges on the existing block chain based IoT applications in the agriculture domain where maximum research focuses on food supply chain and its security of Internet of things with Block chain. The chapter presents how block chain and smart contracts can increase productivity, transparency and traceability could be very effective in Agricultural insurance, smart farming, transactions of agricultural food supply chains