BA-TLS: Blockchain Authentication for Transport Layer Security in Internet of Things

Traditional security solutions that rely on public key infrastructure present scalability and transparency challenges when deployed in Internet of Things (IoT). In this paper, we develop a blockchain based authentication mechanism for IoT that can be integrated into the traditional transport layer security protocols such as Transport Layer Security (TLS) and Datagram Transport Layer Security (DTLS). Our proposed mechanism is an alternative to the traditional Certificate Authority (CA)-based Public Key Infrastructure (PKI) that relies on x.509 certificates. Specifically, the proposed solution enables the modified TLS/DTLS a viable option for resource constrained IoT devices where minimizing memory utilization is critical. Experiments show that blockchain based authentication can reduce dynamic memory usage by up to 20%, while only minimally increasing application image size and time of execution of the TLS/DTLS handshake.

I. Introduction

As Internet of Things technology continues to grow, current trends demonstrate a shift away from centralized and cloud architectures to edge architectures. This shift is driven by the fact that edge architectures are needed to enable more flexible, responsive and intelligent IoT systems. The addition of numerous edge devices to Internet interactions introduces challenges in securing the communication between IoT systems. For secure communication in a typical IoT architecture, the following security goals must be achieved [1] : •

Each participant involved in passing data, including the sensing and/or actuating devices, user devices, and edge gateways and servers must be authenticated.

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During any communication session, data must be protected from any alterations and data integrity validated.

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Encryption and decryption techniques must be employed to ensure data confidentiality while the data is in transport between any two entities.