A Data Driven Trust Mechanism Based on Blockchain in IoT Sensor Networks for Detection and Mitigation of Attacks

Abstract

Utilization of smart applications in various domains is facilitated pervasively by sensor nodes (SN) that are connected in a wireless manner and a number of smart things. Hazards due to internal and external attacks exist along with the advantages of the smart things and its applications. Security measures are influenced by three main factors namely scalability, latency and network lifespan, without which mitigation of internal attacks is a challenge. The deployment of SN based Internet of things (IoT) is decentralized in nature. However, centralized solutions and security measures are provided by most researchers. A data driven trust mechanism based on blockchain is presented in this paper as a decentralized and energy efficient solution for detection of internal attacks in IoT powered SNs. In grey and black hole attack settings, the message overhead is improved using the proposed model when compared to the existing solutions. In both grey and black hole attacks, the time taken for detection of malicious nodes is also reduced considerably. The network lifetime is improved significantly due to the enhancement of these factors.