2017 2nd International Conference on Telecommunication and Networks (TEL-NET 2017)

A Security Framework for IOT Devices Against

Wireless Threats

Himanshu Gupta Garima Varshney

Amity University, Noida Amity University, Noida
[email protected] [email protected]

Abstract—Everyday number of smart devices or IOT devices which is connected to the smart-hub. If successfully access is
either it be a smart phone, tablet, smart home device or any gained by the attacker of our wireless network this will allow
wearable technology are being connected to the internet. These the cyber criminals to spot the smart-hubs which they can
IOT devices have become an essential part of our everyday life. hack easily giving them access to our house security devices
We use them in many forms without being aware that we have
resulting in compromising our security or may be these
started depending on them like for security purpose we use
security systems in our house, or the smarts locks on our doors to moonlighters could walk up to our front door as a trespasser.
keep our self-safe from the moon lighters. But do we really
II.CIA TRIAD
consider our security that seriously. Today IOT device security
has become one of the major concern of the IT Industry. In this CIA triad known as confidentiality, integrity and availability.
paper, we are using the block chain technique to develop a These are basically the guidelines which are set for the
framework for security and management of data on the internet. information security in an organization.
We have developed a framework which shows how smart devices
communicate with each other with block chain posing as the
backbone. The framework serves as a scalable and robust
solution, in order to address identity and security concerns of
IOT. The proposed framework is further compared to existing
models.

Keywords—Blockchain; Centralized; Decentralized; IOT;

Network Security.

Fig.1: CIA Triad

I. INTRODUCTION
The Internet of things is changing almost everything thing in
our surroundings. From the way we shop, the way we get All the three components of CIA triad are important parts of
power for our houses or the way we communicate with each security.
other. It has become one of the essential part of our daily life.
Small chips and sensor are embedded in physical devices • Confidentiality: Basically, are the set of rules that makes the
which transmit valuable information. This information give us availability of information limited. The measures are taken to
a better understanding how these devices work and how they make sure that the sensitive data should not reach in the hands
are becoming essential for our day to day life. of unwanted people on the other hand making sure that the
rightful owner of the information can accesses it.
These devices share a large amount of data either it is our
health data or our day to day money transaction data, this large • Integrity: Integrity means that the data present is correct and
amount of data is shared between different devices over the trustworthy. It involves maintaining the accuracy,
common platform i.e., internet of things. The IOT platform trustworthiness and consistency of information over the
allows different applications to communicate with each other complete life-cycle of the data. In the transit of information, it
by combining the data from different devices and applying should not be altered and measures should be taken to make
analytics on the data to share the valuable information among sure that the information should not be breached by
the applications. unauthorized participants.

For easier access, most of the smart devices in our house are • Availability: Availability means that the data is accessible to
connected to the smart-hub. But unfortunately, most of these authorized users only. It is best practiced by strictly
smart-hubs contain serious vulnerabilities which can allow the maintaining the hardware, performing timely hardware repairs
attacker to come to our front door and can unlock the lock and maintaining a properly working operating-system
 2017 2nd International Conference on Telecommunication and Networks (TEL-NET 2017)
circumstances which is free from software frays. It is also blockchain that limits to the access of data to read and
important to keep the system timely upgraded. write only. Example Bitcoin where anyone can write
the data.

III.CHALLENGES FOR IOT • Private blockchain: in private block chain, all the
nodes that are participating in the system chain are
We can consider internet of things as system of systems since trusted and known.
various technologies and physical factors make the ecosystem
of internet of things. As the IOT system is the integrated result
of different applications, sensor, chips, devices, analytical V. CENTRALIZED AND DECENTALIZED
capabilities and protocols, this complex architecture ARCHITECTURE
introduces to many challenges for IOT such as securing of
IOT and making sure that none of the IOT bridge can be used The Centralized Architecture
as a breach point and compromise the security of the user.
Some of the IOT challenges are: Currently IOT systems use the centralized communication
model that is also called as client-server communication. The
• Scalability- Since there are several types of devices working IOT devices are connected to servers on cloud which have
together on the IOT platform it is very difficult to provide huge storage capacity and support large amount of processing
same security level among the entire network. power. These centralized systems used by IOT devices use
SSL or TSL or public key cryptography to communicate
• Manageability- It is a daunting task to govern the access of between the devices and identify the participants in the
all the devices, which leads to may authority issues. network.

• Reliability – As IOT consist of diverse network it is difficult Because of the enormous growth of the IOT devices there are
to authorize reliability of all the sources of data such as in case many challenges that have occurred for the centralized system
of data attacks like man in middle attack. such as:
• Entire system could be affected because of single
• Capability – Availability limited size of memory and limited server failure.
amount of computing resources makes it tough to implement
• Enormous number of devices depending upon a
any security algorithm.
single network require higher processing capabilities.
• Privacy - Protecting the data of participants from the • Setup cost is high
exposure and falling of data in the hands of unwanted parties. • Cannot cater to the localized specifications.
• Running lower application results in underutilization
IV. TECHNIQUE USED IN FRAMEWORK of the resources.
Development of a solution for IOT requires connectivity, As there are many diverse types of smart devices running in
collaboration and coordination for every device in the system the environment with several types of cloud-infrastructure
and for the complete system must work as one single system. supporting these devices make machine to machine
All the devices must communicate and integrate with each communication difficult. Since the number of IOT devices is
other in a secure way. As the analysis of information for increasing day by day it increases the load on the centralized
internet of things is very important. It is very important to network and it also makes centralized network more
protect the data through its entire-lifecycle. Block chain uses vulnerable as single point failure will result in the downtime
the decentralized method to secure the data rather than having and security threat of the entire network.
a dedicated system.
It is a database which maintains the continuous records of data
Decentralized Architecture
set which are always growing. Blockchain does not have any
master system which holds the entire-chain, it is like a The decentralized network does not depend on the central
distributed ledger. Every time a new data record is added as it architecture and it follows the peer to peer communication
is always growing and each node that is participating in the model which reduces the risk of single server failure which
chain has a copy of the chain. The decentralized approach of
can bring the entire system to shut down for a period of time
block chain eliminates the single point failure and creating
more flexible environment for the devices to run. Block chain and also reduces the cost of the network setup and
uses cryptographic algorithms which make the data more maintenance as well as it distributes the storage and
secure. computational needs of the network. It also solves many
problems of the centralized network.
There are two types of block chain.
• Public blockchain: In this blockchain anyone can read Decentralized architecture approach support three fundamental
and write the data. But there are some public functions:
• Peer to peer communication
 2017 2nd International Conference on Telecommunication and Networks (TEL-NET 2017)
• Distributed data sharing less and ii) permissioned. Since the public ledger is prone to
• Autonomous device coordination anonymous attacks it is advisable to use permissioned to ensure
security, scalability and performance for real time objects.
Block chain technology which uses decentralized architecture 4.Interface Layer: This layer contains number of devices that
can track billions of IOT devices. The decentralized approach communicate with each other and transfer data. For example:
eliminates the risk of single point failure and creates more Controlling your refrigerator from your mobile phone or
secure environment for the IOT devices. accessing your homes security camera through your mobile
phone. The major thing to keep in mind that the applications or
VI. THE FRAMEWORK the devices must be integrated carefully so that it does not give
access to the intruders.

We propose to extend the use of Block chain in IOT Securing IOT using Blockchain
infrastructure using layer approach. We are taking an example
of smart house for explaining our security frame work Fig-2 Handling a huge volume of the data which is increasing day
show the proposed framework. by day is very difficult and keeping track of every device is a
daunting task. Turning the large amount of data into valuable
information is also a challenging task. The existing
technologies used for security purpose are important for risk
mitigation of IOT but are not enough. Many companies have
tailored their securities according to each IOT device and its
unique capabilities but this has also introduced the risks that
are involved with the devices.

Block chain help to address these security concerns which are

growing each day. Block chain maintains an ever-growing
database consisting of data set records. These data sets are
distributed in-nature which means there is no central system
which holds the entire network. Only the participating nodes
are having the copy of the chain. The data records which are
always growing are added to the chain. Blockchain consist of
two main elements:

Fig.2: Proposed Framework

1.Physical Layer: As smart houses are equipped with many

devices which have sensors that collect the data and transfer it
the other layers. Many of the smart devices such as security
cameras which are vulnerable to security attacks as they lack in
access control mechanism and encryption.
2.Communication Layer: In this layer, smart devices uses
different communication protocols such as Bluetooth etc. to
exchange data among different devices.
To provide security and privacy for transmitting data the block
chain protocol needs to be integrated with the communication
layer. Integration of the blockchain with the existing Fig.3: Device Interaction
communication protocol is challenge as the requirement may
vary from application to application. • Transaction: The actions which are created by participants
of the block chain system.
3.Database layer: Block chain is a distributed ledger which is a
type of decentralized database that store and records the data • Blocks: These blocks record transactions and make sure
one after the another. Each record in the ledger as a time data is in proper sequence and prevent data tampering.
constrain and a unique cryptographic signature. The history of They also maintain a timestamp for every trans-action.
the ledger can be verified by a permissible user. There are two
different type of distributed ledger in practice: i) permission
 2017 2nd International Conference on Telecommunication and Networks (TEL-NET 2017)
Fig-3 shows how devices communicate with each other. The
model will register the new devices, perform distinct functions Step2: The block which is broadcasted over the internet
on devices and authenticate the device and user. The functions contains the IP address of both the source and the target
performed on the devices will occur securely and seamlessly. device, along with the information which is encrypted by the
The data stored is encrypted using cryptographic algorithm. block hashing algorithm and contains a hash value. The block
The block serves as the abstraction of the information that is also contains the time when it is created. Fig-5 Represent the
being transferred. The communicating device do not have to block structure containing all the fields.
customize the data before adding it to the block chain network.
And as the data is encrypted the block chain does not know Step3: As block chain is distributed leger database every block
what type of the data is being send or received. contains the information about its previous block know as
hash value which is a unique value. Before adding the block to
If any device wants to send a message to the other device, it the block chain it is validated by the participants of the
needs to add the identity such as IP address of both the source network these participants use validating technique such as
and the target device. After adding the address the message multichain to validate the data. The validators in the network
can be exchanged among the devices and it can be added to are the trusted and known parties which validates the data
the blockchain as block. The data within the block will also based on different protocol.
include the address of source device and the address of the
targeted device, message to be exchanged and the hash value
which is cryptographed based on the data present in the block.
The hash function which is cryptographed will perform
encryption on the data present in the block and the encrypted
data is stored as the extra information in the block, it can use
encryption such as SHA-1. This encrypted data serves as an
extra layer of protection of the block.

For example, if a hacker manages to breach the blockchain

network. If he successfully modifies the data in the block for
example the addresses present in the block data. This will
mismatch with the encrypted hash value and the data stored in
the block and this miss match will result in the failed
validation of the data and thus discarding the block and
preventing further attacks.

VI. WORKING PRINCIPLE Fig.5: Block Structure

The working principle of the blockchain is explained below
and fig.4 shows the dataflow in the network. Hash Function Algorithm

This algorithm applies mathematical function over the

message contained in the information block. The latest
information block is added to the block-chain after performing
the process of mining. In the block-mining process new block
consist of time record and the reference value of the preceding
block. The algorithm will take the message and transfer it to a
digest every digest has a unique output but every time this
output is same a slightest difference in the information
produces a new digest.

Such as:
good morning == 896c751c8c45b39f6cb0eh9eghd4567
Good morning == 0567fgtd457hv563423d5b6m90xc89
Now the participant in the block-chain network who are
known as miners validate the information and add the
Fig.4: Dataflow in the Network information to their memory pool. The block is hashed by
using SHA256.
Step 1: When a device requests for the transaction of The newly produced hash is then organized in the tree
information over the internet the information block is created, structure, which consist of block header known as block hash.
which is then broadcasted to the cluster of blockchains over A single block consists of hundreds and thousands of
the internet.
 2017 2nd International Conference on Telecommunication and Networks (TEL-NET 2017)
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