Ethereum Blockchain-Based Solution to Insider Threats on Perception Layer of IoT Systems

Abstract

The Internet of Things (IoT) has allured so much interest since inception thanks to the amazing capabilities it offers. Consequently, it has found tremendous applications and has been employed to meet increasing automation and computerization demands of public and private organizations where it handles enormous critical information. However, the major issue surrounding the IoT is, it is exposed to various physical and cyber threats including the significantly harmful insider threat. In this work, we approach the insider threat problem to IoT from the viewpoint of examining the influence of tampering with state of the sensing environment on the overall IoT system. Our aim is to investigate how altering the environment state in perception layer of the IoT affects the integrity of the data read by sensors; and provide mechanism to preserve the integrity of the system data to ensure accurate analytics and processing. We focused on threat models where insiders compromise physical properties about which data are collected and transmitted, deceiving the sensors into reading inaccurate data. As initial solution to the problem, we developed a framework that integrates Ethereum blockchain with edge computing to perform checks and preserve integrity of incoming sensor data before being analyzed, processed and stored.