Blockchain – The Answer to IoT Security Concerns

access_time March 20, 2019
by   TechmavenitAdmin
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The internet of things is transforming our everyday life, including that of our homes, industry, agriculture, transportation, healthcare, logistics etc. IoT implementation ensures that companies achieve competitive advantage by gaining productivity increases in every sphere where the internet of things has been implemented. A survey done by Gartner has revealed that there will be over 20 billion connected devices by 2020 and it is also expected that the industrial IoT will reach $933.62 billion by 2025. Internet of things as we know is the ever- growing network of connected devices featuring an IP address, enabling it to collect and transmit data between devices. With all sorts of devices becoming connected, there will be immensely huge volume of data that is openly available Keeping this in mind, it needs to be realized that managing all the available information emanating from variety of connected devices is complex and that consideration must be given to protecting this data throughout its life cycle. Current IoT systems suffer from drawbacks The IoT ecosystem as existing today, is able to support small- scale IoT networks but may not be able to support the exponential growth of IoT devices projected for the future. The servers will become overloaded and this will offer a better opportunity for hackers to mount a cyber attack. This is because the current IoT ecosystems rely on centralized communication models such as a server- client communication system. All the communications between IoT devices are made through cloud services exclusively through the internet. With the number of current connected devices expected to grow to 20 billion by 2020, it is unlikely that the current server infrastructure will be able to support this huge growth numbers. The existing IoT solutions, besides, are expensive due to their high infrastructure and the maintenance costs associated with centralized clouds. In addition, with the number of connected devices projected to increase rapidly, the costs too would grow substantially. Blockchain offers scalability, reliability and security The security of data then, continues to be an issue with the current IoT ecosystem. The block chain technology, which is the distributed ledger behind virtual currencies such as Bitcon, offers the best answer to the security challenges. Blockchain can then be considered the missing link able to address the scalability, reliability and security issues associated with IoT. Blockchain , released as an open source, is a continuously growing list of records called blocks, which are linked and secured using cryptography. Blockchain allows digital information to be distributed but not copied. Though initially designed for financial transactions, blockchain technology can be used to record any form of data and keep it secure. The blockchain process allows for security and anonymity. It enables the creation of secure mesh networks with secure and reliable interconnection of IoT devices. Blockchain technology, besides, enables the tracking of billions of connected devices and the processing of transactions and coordination between devices. Another advantage of blockchain is that it is public and everyone participating can see the blocks and transactions stored in them though no one can see the actual content of your transaction as it is protected by your private key. Besides, it is most secure as the database can only be extended and previous records cannot be changed. The decentralized blockchain approach eliminates single points of failure, making the IoT ecosystems less likely to be affected by cyber attacks that result in the loss of valuable data. With blockchain ecosystem, data will not be lost as the records of distributed ledger or database are not stored at one location. Additionally, the blockchain cryptographic algorithms make data more private and prevent malicious use.  

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