Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

A Secure and Scalable IoT Consensus Protocol

  • Conference paper
  • First Online:
The Fifth International Conference on Safety and Security with IoT

Part of the book series: EAI/Springer Innovations in Communication and Computing ((EAISICC))

  • 191 Accesses

Abstract

Several consensus algorithms have been proposed as a way of resolving the Byzantine General problem with respect to blockchain consensus process. However, when these consensus algorithms are applied to a distributed, asynchronous network, some suffer with security and/or scalability issues, while others suffer with liveness and/or safety issues. This is because the majority of research have not considered the importance of liveness and safety, with respect to the integrity of the consensus decision. In this paper, a novel solution to this challenge is presented, a solution that protects blockchain transactions from fraudulent or erroneous mis-spends. This consensus protocol uses a combination of probabilistic randomness, an isomorphic balance authentication, error detection and synchronised time restrictions, when assessing the authenticity and validity of IoT request. Designed to operate in a distributed asynchronous network, this approach increases scalability while maintaining a high transactional throughput, even when faced with Byzantine failure.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

Log in via an institution
Chapter
USD 29.95
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
eBook
USD 119.00
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as EPUB and PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Softcover Book
USD 159.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Compact, lightweight edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info
Hardcover Book
USD 159.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Durable hardcover edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Institutional subscriptions

References

  1. Hung, M.: Insight on How to Lead in a Connected World (2017)

    Google Scholar 

  2. Neshenko, N., Bou-Harb, E., Crichigno, J., Kaddoum, G., Ghani, N.: Demystifying IoT security: an exhaustive survey on IoT vulnerabilities and a first empirical look on internet-scale IoT exploitations. IEEE Commun. Surv. Tutorials. 21, 2702–2733 (2019)

    Google Scholar 

  3. Dawson, M.: Cyber Security Architectural Needs in the Era of Internet of Things and Hyperconnected Systems (2016)

    Google Scholar 

  4. Hossain, M.M., Fotouhi, M., Hasan, R.: Towards an analysis of security issues, challenges, and open problems in the Internet of Things. In: 2015 IEEE World Congress on Services (2015)

    Google Scholar 

  5. Hwang, Y.H.: IoT security & privacy: threats and challenges. In: Proceedings of the 1st ACM Workshop on IoT Privacy, Trust, and Security (2015)

    Google Scholar 

  6. Sicari, S., Rizzardi, A., Grieco, L.A., Coen-Porisini, A.: Security, privacy and trust in Internet of Things: the road ahead. Comput. Netw. 76, 146–164 (2015)

    Google Scholar 

  7. Gupta, S.D., Ghanavati, S.: Towards a heterogeneous IoT privacy architecture. In: Proceedings of the 35th Annual ACM Symposium on Applied Computing (2020)

    Google Scholar 

  8. Khan, M.A., Salah, K.: IoT security: review, blockchain solutions, and open challenges. Futur. Gener. Comput. Syst. 82, 395–411 (2018)

    Google Scholar 

  9. Zhang, Z.-K., Cho, M.C.Y., Wang, C.-W., Hsu, C.-W., Chen, C.-K., Shieh, S.: IoT security: ongoing challenges and research opportunities. In: 2014 IEEE 7th International Conference on Service-Oriented Computing and Applications (SOCA) (2014)

    Google Scholar 

  10. MacKenzie, B., Ferguson, R.I., Bellekens, X.: An assessment of blockchain consensus protocols for the Internet of Things. In: 2018 International Conference on Internet of Things, Embedded Systems and Communications (IINTEC) (2018)

    Google Scholar 

  11. Feng, H., Fu, W.: Study of recent development about privacy and security of the Internet of Things. In: 2010 International Conference on Web Information Systems and Mining (2010)

    Google Scholar 

  12. Kolias, C., Kambourakis, G., Stavrou, A., Voas, J.: DDoS in the IoT: Mirai and other botnets. Computer. 50, 80–84 (2017)

    Google Scholar 

  13. Zhou, W., Jia, Y., Peng, A., Zhang, Y., Liu, P.: The effect of iot new features on security and privacy: new threats, existing solutions, and challenges yet to be solved. IEEE Internet Things J. 6(2), 1606–1616 (2018)

    Google Scholar 

  14. Ali, S.T., McCorry, P., Lee, P.H.-J., Hao, F.: Zombiecoin: powering next-generation botnets with bitcoin. In: International Conference on Financial Cryptography and Data Security (2015)

    Google Scholar 

  15. Dittrich, D.: So you want to take over a botnet…. In: Presented as part of the 5th USENIX Workshop on Large-Scale Exploits and Emergent Threats (2012)

    Google Scholar 

  16. Shang, W., Yu, Y., Droms, R., Zhang, L.: Challenges in IoT networking via TCP/IP architecture, Technical Report NDN-0038. NDN Project (2016)

    Google Scholar 

  17. Biason, A., Pielli, C., Zanella, A., Zorzi, M.: Access control for IoT nodes with energy and fidelity constraints. IEEE Trans. Wirel. Commun. 17, 3242–3257 (2018)

    Google Scholar 

  18. Huang, J., Kong, L., Chen, G., Wu, M.-Y., Liu, X., Zeng, P.: Towards secure industrial IoT: blockchain system with credit-based consensus mechanism. IEEE Trans. Ind. Informatics. 15, 3680–3689 (2019)

    Google Scholar 

  19. Christidis, K., Devetsikiotis, M.: Blockchains and smart contracts for the Internet of Things. IEEE Access. 4, 2292–2303 (2016)

    Google Scholar 

  20. Dorri, A., Kanhere, S.S., Jurdak, R., Gauravaram, P.: Blockchain for IoT security and privacy: the case study of a smart home. In: 2017 IEEE International Conference on Pervasive Computing and Communications Workshops (PerCom Workshops) (2017)

    Google Scholar 

  21. Reyna, A., Martín, C., Chen, J., Soler, E., Díaz, M.: On blockchain and its integration with IoT. Challenges and opportunities. Futur. Gener. Comput. Syst. 88, 173–190 (2018)

    Google Scholar 

  22. Li, X., Jiang, P., Chen, T., Luo, X., Wen, Q.: A survey on the security of blockchain systems. Futur. Gener. Comput. Syst. 107, 841–853 (2020)

    Google Scholar 

  23. Botha, R.A., Eloff, J.H.P.: Separation of duties for access control enforcement in workflow environments. IBM Syst. J. 40, 666–682 (2001)

    Google Scholar 

  24. Chandra, T.D., Hadzilacos, V., Toueg, S.: The weakest failure detector for solving consensus. J. ACM. 43, 685–722 (1996)

    MathSciNet  MATH  Google Scholar 

  25. Chandra, T.D., Toueg, S.: Unreliable failure detectors for reliable distributed systems. J. ACM. 43, 225–267 (1996)

    MathSciNet  MATH  Google Scholar 

  26. Fischer, M.J., Lynch, N.A., Paterson, M.S.: Impossibility of distributed consensus with one faulty process. J. Assoc. Comput. Mach. 32(2), 374–382 (1985)

    MathSciNet  MATH  Google Scholar 

  27. Na, M., Liskov, B.: Practical Byzantine fault tolerance and proactive recovery. ACM Trans. Comput. Syst. 20, 398–461 (2002)

    Google Scholar 

  28. Lamport, M.P.R.S.L.: The Byzantine generals problem. ACM Trans. Prog. Lang. Syst. Microsoft Res. 4, 382–401 (1982)

    MATH  Google Scholar 

  29. Lamport, L., et al.: Paxos made simple. ACM Sigact News. 32, 18–25 (2001)

    Google Scholar 

  30. Nakamoto, S.: Bitcoin: a peer-to-peer electronic cash system (2008)

    Google Scholar 

  31. Dorri, A., Kanhere, S.S., Jurdak, R.: Blockchain in Internet of Things: challenges and solutions. arXiv preprint arXiv:1608.05187. (2016)

    Google Scholar 

  32. Deep, G., Mohana, R., Nayyar, A., Sanjeevikumar, P., Hossain, E.: Authentication protocol for cloud databases using blockchain mechanism. Sensors. 19, 4444 (2019)

    Google Scholar 

  33. Luu, L., Narayanan, V., Baweja, K., Zheng, C., Gilbert, S., Saxena, P.: SCP: a computationally-scalable Byzantine consensus protocol for blockchains. https://www.weusecoins.com/assets/pdf/library/SCP, vol. 20, p. 2016 (2015)

  34. Mazieres, D.: The Stellar Consensus Protocol: A Federated Model for Internet-Level Consensus, p. 32. Stellar Development Foundation, San Francisco, CA (2015)

    Google Scholar 

  35. Kosba, A., Miller, A., Shi, E., Wen, Z., Papamanthou, C.: Hawk: the blockchain model of cryptography and privacy-preserving smart contracts. In: 2016 IEEE Symposium on Security and privacy (SP) (2016)

    Google Scholar 

  36. Schwartz, D., Youngs, N., Britto, A., et al.: The Ripple Protocol Consensus Algorithm. https://ripple.com/files/rippleconsensuswhitepaper.pdf (2014)

  37. Valenta, M., Sandner, P.: Comparison of Ethereum, Hyperledger Fabric and Corda (2017)

    Google Scholar 

  38. Milutinovic, M., He, W., Wu, H., Kanwal, M.: Proof of luck: an efficient blockchain consensus protocol. In: Proceedings of the 1st Workshop on System Software for Trusted Execution (2016)

    Google Scholar 

  39. Poelstra, A., et al.: Distributed consensus from proof of stake is impossible, Self-published Paper (2014)

    Google Scholar 

  40. Sangster, A., Scataglinibelghitar, G.: Luca Pacioli: the father of accounting education. Account. Educ. 19, 423–438 (2010)

    Google Scholar 

  41. Pacioli, L., Brown, R.G., Johnston, K.S.: Paciolo on accounting, Facsimiles-Garl (1963)

    Google Scholar 

  42. Karame, G.O., Androulaki, E., Capkun, S.: Double-spending fast payments in bitcoin. In: Proceedings of the 2012 ACM Conference on Computer and Communications Security (2012)

    Google Scholar 

  43. Heilman, E., Kendler, A., Zohar, A., Goldberg, S.: Eclipse attacks on Bitcoin’s peer-to-peer network. In: USENIX Security Symposium (2015)

    Google Scholar 

  44. Dent, A.W., Mitchell, C.J.: User’s Guide to Cryptography and Standards (Artech House Computer Security). Artech House, Inc, Norwood, MA (2004)

    Google Scholar 

  45. Jakobsson, M., Juels, A.: Proofs of Work and Bread Pudding Protocols, pp. 258–272. Springer, New York (1999)

    Google Scholar 

  46. Castro, M., Liskov, B.: Practical byzantine fault tolerance. In: Proceedings of the Third USENIX Symposium on Operating Systems Design and Implementation (OSDI), pp. 173–186, New Orleans, Louisiana, USA., February 22–25 (1999, 1999). https://doi.org/10.1145/296806.296824

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Division of Cyber Security, Abertay University, Dundee, UK

    Beverley A. MacKenzie, Ian Ferguson & Abdul Razaq

Authors
  1. Beverley A. MacKenzie
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Ian Ferguson
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  3. Abdul Razaq
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Beverley A. MacKenzie .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. School of Computer Science, Duy Tan University, Da Nang, Vietnam

    Anand Nayyar

  2. The School of Computer Science and Engineering, Kyungpook National University, Daegu, Korea (Republic of)

    Anand Paul

  3. Computer Science and Engineering, Nirma University, Gujarat, India

    Sudeep Tanwar

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 2023 The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG

About this paper

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this paper

MacKenzie, B.A., Ferguson, I., Razaq, A. (2023). A Secure and Scalable IoT Consensus Protocol. In: Nayyar, A., Paul, A., Tanwar, S. (eds) The Fifth International Conference on Safety and Security with IoT . EAI/Springer Innovations in Communication and Computing. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-94285-4_5

Download citation

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-94285-4_5

  • Published:

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-030-94284-7

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-030-94285-4

  • eBook Packages: EngineeringEngineering (R0)

Publish with us

Policies and ethics

Search

Navigation