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Internet of Things (IoT) devices present different security challenges that have not been addressed yet and there is no clear commitment from stakeholders to do so. Such problems have become evident and IoT devices are targets of malicious actors that employ them as instruments to fulfill their nefarious purposes. Recent attacks to major Internet s...
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Network security is an essential element in the day-today IT operations of nearly every organization in business. Securing a computer network means considering the threats and vulnerabilities and arrange the countermeasures. Network security threats are increasing rapidly and making wireless network and internet services unreliable and insecure. In...
Citations
... Closed blockchain ecosystems employ whitelisting and blacklisting protocols to selectively grant or deny entry into the ecosystem, respectively [82]. In gambling scenarios, whitelisting can allow validated players and sanctioned gambling DApps onto the blockchain. ...
Purpose of Review
This review highlights the fragmented network of gambling operators as a significant obstacle to effective harm reduction (HR) settings (e.g., bet/spend limits, self-exclusion). Players struggle to track their betting across operators without the ability to set universal limits, a situation exacerbated by the rising accessibility of gambling in the US. Using the strengths of blockchain technology as a digital ledger that securely records transactions, the present commentary proposes a blockchain ecosystem that could enhance bet tracking and enable universal application of HR settings.
Recent Findings
Past research blockchain technology within the context of gambling largely focuses on cryptocurrencies as a payment method. While a concern for regulators, the focus of the present paper is on the largely unexplored area of decentralized gambling applications and their potential in facilitating HR settings via smart contracts (i.e., digitally self-executing contracts). Theoretically, smart contracts could be tailored to consider players’ HR settings prior to a bet being approved. When included within a unified blockchain network, players’ real-time gambling activities would be tracked in conjunction with their universally applied HR settings, thus enhancing the efficacy of these HR settings.
Summary
The proposal for a blockchain ecosystem aims to create a safer gambling landscape by simplifying bet tracking, and thus, increasing adherence to limit settings across operators and platforms. Despite potential scalability issues as well as legal challenges, this innovative approach would reduce risks and foster safer gambling practices. Future directions for research and policy development are offered.
... In addition to the Ethereum platform, the solutions presented in [133][134][135] also pay attention to traffic control to mitigate DDoS attacks. Similar to the category of traffic controlbased solutions (i.e., Section 5.3), in this classification, two types of strategies are used, which are the maximum rate of transactions [133] and whitelisting mechanism [134,135]. ...
... In addition to the Ethereum platform, the solutions presented in [133][134][135] also pay attention to traffic control to mitigate DDoS attacks. Similar to the category of traffic controlbased solutions (i.e., Section 5.3), in this classification, two types of strategies are used, which are the maximum rate of transactions [133] and whitelisting mechanism [134,135]. ...
... Solutions presented by [134,135] are based on the Ethereum platform and the whitelisting mechanism to mitigate DDoS attacks. Interestingly, Ref. [134] runs this system for more than 500 days with a large number of IoT devices and tested the effectiveness of mitigating DDoS attacks. ...
Internet of Things (IoT) devices are widely used in many industries including smart cities, smart agriculture, smart medical, smart logistics, etc. However, Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks pose a serious threat to the security of IoT. Attackers can easily exploit the vulnerabilities of IoT devices and control them as part of botnets to launch DDoS attacks. This is because IoT devices are resource-constrained with limited memory and computing resources. As an emerging technology, Blockchain has the potential to solve the security issues in IoT. Therefore, it is important to analyse various Blockchain-based solutions to mitigate DDoS attacks in IoT. In this survey, a detailed survey of various Blockchain-based solutions to mitigate DDoS attacks in IoT is carried out. First, we discuss how the IoT networks are vulnerable to DDoS attacks, its impact over IoT networks and associated services, the use of Blockchain as a potential technology to address DDoS attacks, in addition to challenges of Blockchain implementation in IoT. We then discuss various existing Blockchain-based solutions to mitigate the DDoS attacks in the IoT environment. Then, we classify existing Blockchain-based solutions into four categories i.e., Distributed Architecture-based solutions, Access Management-based solutions, Traffic Control-based solutions and the Ethereum Platform-based solutions. All the solutions are critically evaluated in terms of their working principles, the DDoS defense mechanism (i.e., prevention, detection, reaction), strengths and weaknesses. Finally, we discuss future research directions that can be explored to design and develop better Blockchain-based solutions to mitigate DDoS attacks in IoT.
... In an IoT environment, distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks and botnet-based attacks are some of the main security vulnerabilities. In 2016, a famous botnet attack occurred that is often referred to as Mari botnet attack disrupting Internetbased services and slowdowns in digital communications worldwide [6]. The Internet services observed several other attacks too followed by the Mari botnet attack, whereas in 2016 a large-scale DDoS attack through closed-circuit television (CCTV) cameras was faced by an Internet-hosting company, called OVH [7], in which the cybercriminals hacked and use 145,607 cameras to launch the DDoS attack [7], [8]. ...
... Device tampering to create a bot for potential DDoS attacks using IoT devices is a major security concern [9]. Several studies are then proposed [6], [10], [11] to mitigate the DDoS attacks initiated by IoT-based bots, and most of those approaches [12]- [15] often employ centralized defense mechanisms to tackle DDoS attacks. However, providing a reliable and efficient solution for the mitigation of DDoS attacks is important. ...
... Blockchain technology provides a fully decentralized architecture in which no third parties are involved [17] and it can be deployed to provide transparent and secure communication between different parties [15]. Blockchain uses different consensus algorithms to establish a secure and trustworthy environment among diverse nodes such as Proof-Of-Work, Proof-Of-Stack, among others [6]. The consensus algorithms define how a new node can enter the network and how it can add a new block to the blockchain. ...
Distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks as well as botnet-based attacks are among the most important security vulnerabilities in Internet of Things (IoT) environments. Most of the existing research approaches use centralized defense mechanisms to prevent DDoS attacks in IoT environments. However, it is important to provide a reliable and scalable solution to prevent DDoS attacks. Combining technologies such as distributed blockchain-based mechanisms and smart contracts facilitates the construction of a trusted distributed framework that can defend against DDoS attacks in IoT. In this article, we have proposed a multilevel DDoS mitigation approach (ML-DDoS) to protect IoT devices and other computing resources or machines using the blockchain-based framework. The core concept of the proposed system is to use a device-based verification mechanism using blockchain and exclude malicious devices from IoT environments. The proposed framework was developed using Hyperledger Caliper (a blockchain benchmark tool) and its performance was evaluated using three benchmark applications. Compared to the state of the art, the results show that the proposed framework achieves up to 35% improvement in throughput, up to 40% improvement in latency, and up to 25% better utilization of CPU.
... Whitelisting allows the administrator to allow or prevent a device from connecting to the network or a computer. MendezMena and Yang (2018) stated that whitelisting devices allows the administrator to control what information can pass through the IoT to the computer. The use of whitelisting adds another level of management for the devices. ...
Through the advances in technology, businesses can now utilize IoT devices to improve a variety of tasks from monitoring vitals sings to get real time feedback on activities.
... Wu et al., [32] used a BC network as a second channel for two-factor authentication of IoT devices. A few efforts, reported in [33,34,35], have built and deployed authorization mechanisms directly on top of BC 755 networks. Compatibility, availability, and performance are other attributes targeted by BC-IoT systems. ...
... BC networks provide a source of truth to operate security mechanisms. They can store access request [53,54], cybersecurity inci-890 dences [47], reputation rating [43,45], and white / blacklists of hosts [33]. As these records are immutable, they might serve as forensic evidence [55]. ...
... Some BC-IoT sys- tems use smart contract to run security logic based on the truth stored on-chain. For instance, smart contract can 895 be used to can authorize access to and from devices [56], detect and prevent devices from participating in botnets [33], and update reputation rating of different participants in an IoT application [47]. An advantage of BC-based solutions is that they ensure integrity by cryptography and 900 consensus protocols instead of human's assurance. ...
Recent years have witnessed the emergence of the Internet of Things (IoT) systems that incorporate blockchain (BC) elements in their architecture. Due to discrepancies between the requirements of IoT systems and the characteristics of BC networks, the motivations and design of these blockchain-enabled IoT systems (BC-IoT) are not only intriguing from a research perspective but also invaluable in practice. This paper presents an inductive study of the “why” and “how” of BC-IoT systems through a Systematic Literature Review of 120 peer-reviewed studies. To capture the diverse nature of BC-IoT integration, we proposed and applied a multi-perspective framework to analyse the existing systems. Regarding their motivations, we studied the improvement objectives and technical problems that drive the integration of BC. Regarding the design, we captured the position of BC within IoT systems as well as the content and processes that IoT systems offload to BC. As these dimensions are not mutually exclusive, they constitute a rich and multi-angle view of BC-IoT integration. Based on these findings, we defined 10 archetypes of BC-IoT systems that embody the core patterns of usage and configuration of BC in IoT systems.
... The purpose of this work is to introduce an application of the blockchain protocol to protect end-to-end network functionality, from the service providers to the edge of the home network, and hence the IoT devices in it. The work greatly extended the primary idea of our earlier work [4]. In addition, this work proposes a security framework that supports deeper interactions between service providers and their consumers. ...
... Consequently, the authors would like to provide a quick review of their previous work [4]. The authors presented a blockchain-based security solution for home networks and home IoT devices. ...
... Network and logical diagram from previous work, taken from Reference[4]. ...
Security presents itself as one of the biggest threats to the enabling and the deployment of the Internet of Things (IoT). Security challenges are evident in light of recent cybersecurity attacks that targeted major internet service providers and crippled a significant portion of the entire Internet by taking advantage of faulty and ill-protected embedded devices. Many of these devices reside at home networks with user-administrators who are not familiar with network security best practices, making them easy targets for the attackers. Therefore, security solutions are needed to navigate the insecure and untrusted public networks by automating protections through affordable and accessible first-hand network information sharing. This paper proposes and implements a proof of concept (PoC) to secure Internet Service Providers (ISPs), home networks, and home-based IoT devices using blockchain technologies. The results obtained support the idea of a distributed cyber threat intelligence data sharing network capable of protecting various stakeholders.
... Mendez Mena et al. [24] have built and evaluated a proof of concept based on the Ethereum blockchain to protect the edge of home networks. Their "gatekeeper" enforces a whitelist of allowed actions which is computed based on the information stored in an Ethereum smart contract. ...
Network traffic whitelisting has emerged as a dominant approach for securing consumer IoT devices. However, determining what the whitelisted behavior of an IoT device should be remains an open challenge. Proposals to date have relied on manufacturers and trusted parties to provide whitelists, but these proposals require manufacturer involvement or placing trust in an additional stakeholder. Alternatively, locally monitoring devices can allow building whitelists of observed behavior, but devices may not exhaust their functionality set during the observation period, or the behavior may change following a software update which requires re-training. This paper proposes a blockchain-based system for determining whether an IoT device is behaving like other devices of the same type. Our system (SERENIoT, pronounced Serenity) overcomes the challenge of initially determining the correct behavior for a device. Nodes in the SERENIoT public blockchain submit summaries of the network behavior observed for connected IoT devices and build whitelists of behavior observed by the majority of nodes. Changes in behavior through software updates are automatically whitelisted once the update is broadly deployed. Through a proof-of-concept implementation of SERENIoT on a small Raspberry Pi IoT network and a large-scale Amazon EC2 simulation, we evaluate the security, scalability, and performance of our system.
... Blockchain is used to store proofs of location • Geographic location verification • User location privacy preservation A cloud-based blockchain solution for identifying IoT devices manufacturing provenance while enforcing users privacy preservation using EPID (Enhanced Privacy Identity protocol) of Intel to incentivize IoT devices for data sharing [161] • Support anonymous device commissioning and incentive to IoT devices • Ensures privacy-preservation A blockchain-based scheme called Healthcare Data Gateway (HGD) architecture to enable patient to own, control and share their own data easily and securely without violating privacy [150] • No need for trusted third party • Ensures privacy-preservation • Ensure data confidentiality, data authenticity and data integrity A blockchain-based security and privacy scheme for smart homes [151] • Low packet, time and energy overheads • Ensured availability of devices • Resilient against DDoS and linking attacks A blockchain solution for preserving data privacy in Internet of Things using smart contracts along with a firmware scheme using blockchain for prevention of fraudulent data [162] • Trustless access control management • constrained IoT device tampering to prevent fraudulent data A blockchain-based proof of concept for securing consumer/home-based IoT devices and the networks by using Ethereum [163] • No significant storage and CPU overheads • Utilization of built-in asymmetric key encryption and digital signatures present in Ethereum protocol ...
The proliferation of inter-connected devices in critical industries, such as healthcare and power grid, is changing the perception of what constitutes critical infrastructure. The rising interconnectedness of new critical industries is driven by the growing demand for seamless access to information as the world becomes more mobile and connected and as the Internet of Things (IoT) grows. Critical industries are essential to the foundation of today’s society, and interruption of service in any of these sectors can reverberate through other sectors and even around the globe. In today’s hyper-connected world, the critical infrastructure is more vulnerable than ever to cyber threats, whether state sponsored, criminal groups or individuals. As the number of interconnected devices increases, the number of potential access points for hackers to disrupt critical infrastructure grows. This new attack surface emerges from fundamental changes in the critical infrastructure of organizations technology systems. This paper aims to improve understanding the challenges to secure future digital infrastructure while it is still evolving. After introducing the infrastructure generating big data, the functionality-based fog architecture is defined. In addition, a comprehensive review of security requirements in fog-enabled IoT systems is presented. Then, an in-depth analysis of the fog computing security challenges and big data privacy and trust concerns in relation to fog-enabled IoT are given. We also discuss blockchain as a key enabler to address many security related issues in IoT and consider closely the complementary interrelationships between blockchain and fog computing. In this context, this work formalizes the task of securing big data and its scope, provides a taxonomy to categories threats to fog-based IoT systems, presents a comprehensive comparison of state-of-the-art contributions in the field according to their security service and recommends promising research directions for future investigations.
