A Comparative Analysis on Blockchain versus Centralized Authentication Architectures for IoT-Enabled Smart Devices in Smart Cities: A Comprehensive Review, Recent Advances, and Future Research Directions

Abstract

Smart devices have become an essential part of the architectures such as the Internet of Things (IoT), Cyber-Physical Systems (CPSs), and Internet of Everything (IoE). In contrast, these architectures constitute a system to realize the concept of smart cities and, ultimately, a smart planet. The adoption of these smart devices expands to different cyber-physical systems in smart city architecture, i.e., smart houses, smart healthcare, smart transportation, smart grid, smart agriculture, etc. The edge of the network connects these smart devices (sensors, aggregators, and actuators) that can operate in the physical environment and collects the data, which is further used to make an informed decision through actuation. Here, the security of these devices is immensely important, specifically from an authentication standpoint, as in the case of unauthenticated/malicious assets, the whole infrastructure would be at stake. We provide an updated review of authentication mechanisms by categorizing centralized and distributed architectures. We discuss the security issues regarding the authentication of these IoT-enabled smart devices. We evaluate and analyze the study of the proposed literature schemes that pose authentication challenges in terms of computational costs, communication overheads, and models applied to attain robustness. Hence, lightweight solutions in managing, maintaining, processing, and storing authentication data of IoT-enabled assets are an urgent need. From an integration perspective, cloud computing has provided strong support. In contrast, decentralized ledger technology, i.e., blockchain, light-weight cryptosystems, and Artificial Intelligence (AI)-based solutions, are the areas with much more to explore. Finally, we discuss the future research challenges, which will eventually help address the ambiguities for improvement.

Blockchain en salud: transformando la seguridad y la gestión de datos clínicos

“…Al tratarse de un sistema con características inmutables, descentralizado y verificable, actualmente se utiliza mayoritariamente en el sistema de intercambio de mercado de criptomonedas. Sin embargo, no es su uso exclusivo, y actualmente la tecnología blockchain puede suponer un cambio hacia mejor en muchos sistemas de gestión de datos, siendo estudiada su utilidad también en ámbitos que manejan gran volumen de datos (big data) como podrían ser las ciudades inteligentes (Smart Cities) o una red de objetos interconectados mediante Internet (Internet of Things) 2 , 3 , 4 .

Figura 1 Esquema representativo del flujo de datos en una red centralizada convencional.

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IoT Security Model for Smart Cities based on a Metamodeling Approach

“…A physical exchange between IoT devices was explored at the application level based on the identification of sensitive data flows. Authentication mechanisms were categorized into centralized and distributed architectures in [25] and IoT-enabled devices were discussed for their security issues. The authors examined and analyzed the findings regarding computational costs, communication overheads, and robustness of the proposed literature schemes.…”

Evolution of Health Information Sharing Between Health Care Organizations: Potential of Nonfungible Tokens

“…Ensuring safe custody of patient keys is a critical component of any blockchain-based HIE system. One approach to address this challenge is to use a key management system (KMS) designed to securely store and manage cryptographic keys, including private keys [ 65 ]. A KMS can offer a range of features and safeguards to protect private keys, such as encryption, access control, and backup and recovery capabilities.…”