The Performance Evaluation of Blockchain-Based Security and Privacy Systems for the Internet of Things: A Tutorial

This article presents research challenges and a tutorial on performance evaluation of blockchain-based security and privacy systems for the Internet of Things (IoT). We start by summarizing the existing surveys that deal with blockchain security for IoT networks. Then, we review the blockchain-based security and privacy systems for seventeen types of IoT applications, e.g., Industry 4.0, software-defined networking, edge computing, Internet of Drones, Internet of Cloud, Internet of Energy, Internet of Vehicles, etc. We also review various consensus algorithms and provide a comparison with respect to the nine properties, such as latency, throughput, computation, storage, and communication costs, scalability, attack model, advantage, disadvantage, etc. Moreover, we present the security analysis techniques and provide a classification into four categories, including Burrows, Abadi, and Needham (BAN) logic, game theory, theory analysis, and AVISPA tool. In addition, we analyze the performance metrics, blockchain testbeds, and cryptography libraries used in the performance evaluation of blockchain-based security and privacy systems for the IoT networks. Based on the current survey, we discuss the major steps to follow for building and evaluating blockchain-based security and privacy systems. Finally, we discuss and highlight open challenges and future research opportunities.

I. Introduction

Today, with the emergence of many low-cost and powerful devices, such as sensors and RFIDs associated with various communication media, the Internet of Things (IoT) has gained tremendous popularity, which offers a high potential for the development of not only different home automation systems but also various industrial applications, such as connected drones, connected health, smart farming, wearables, among other areas. The IoT market is projected to increase from over 15 billion devices in 2015 to more than 75 billion in 2025. This projection indicates that on average, there will be at least 25 personal IoT devices for every person on earth [1]. The large-scale and transverse nature of IoT systems, with the different elements and components associated with the implementation of such systems, has opened new security and privacy challenges [2], [3].