Proxy re-encryption enabled secure and anonymous IoT data sharing platform based on blockchain

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jnca.2020.102917Get rights and content
Under a Creative Commons license
open access

Abstract

Data is central to the Internet of Things (IoT) ecosystem. With billions of devices connected, most of the current IoT systems are using centralized cloud-based data sharing systems, which will be difficult to scale up to meet the demands of future IoT systems. The involvement of such a third-party service provider requires also trust from both the sensor owner and sensor data user. Moreover, fees need to be paid for their services.

To tackle both the scalability and trust issues and to automatize the payments, this paper presents a blockchain-based marketplace for sharing of the IoT data. We also use a proxy re-encryption scheme for transferring the data securely and anonymously, from data producer to the consumer. The system stores the IoT data in cloud storage after encryption. To share the collected IoT data, the system establishes runtime dynamic smart contracts between the sensor and data consumer without the involvement of a trusted third-party. It also uses a very efficient proxy re-encryption scheme which allows that the data is only visible by the owner and the person present in the smart contract. This novel combination of smart contracts with proxy re-encryption provides an efficient, fast and secure platform for storing, trading and managing sensor data. The proposed system is implemented using off-the-shelf IoT sensors and computer devices. We also analyze the performance of our hybrid system by using the permission-less Ethereum blockchain and compare it to the IBM Hyperledger Fabric, a permissioned blockchain.

Keywords

Proxy re-encryption
Blockchain
Smart contracts
IoT data sharing
Security
Ethereum
Hyperledger fabric

Cited by (0)

Ahsan Manzoor is a Doctoral student at the University of Oulu, Finland. He is currently working as a Blockchain research developer at Rovio Entertainment. He received his B.Sc. (2014) degree in Computer Software engineering from the Ghulam Ishaq Khan Institute, Pakistan, and the M.Sc. (2017) degree from the University of Oulu, Finland. He started working as a Research assistant and became a doctoral student in early 2018 at Centre for Wireless Communications, University of Oulu, Finland. His research interests are Blockchain, Internet of Things and Ubiquitous computing.

Madhusanka Liyanage received his Ph.D in communication engineering from the University of Oulu, Oulu, Finland. He is currently working as a Marie Curie Fellow/Assistant Professor at School of Computer Science, University College Dublin, Ireland. He is also an adjunct professor at the University of Oulu, Finland. In 2011–2012, he was a research scientist at I3S Laboratory and Inria, Sophia Antipolis, France. Also, he was a visiting research fellow at and Computer Science and Engineering, The University of Oxford, Data61, CSIRO, Sydney Australia, Infolabs21, Lancaster University, UK and Computer Science and Engineering, The University of New South Wales during 2016–2018. His research interests are SDN, IoT, Block Chain, mobile and virtual network security. He is a Member of IEEE and ICT. Madhusanka is a co-author of over 50 publications including two edited book with Wiley. He is also a management committee member of EU COST Action IC1301, IC1303, CA15107, CA15127, CA 16226 projects. He served as a Technical program Committee Members at EAI M3Apps 2016, 5GU 2017, EUCNC 2017, EUCNC 2018, MASS 2018, 5G-WF 2018, MCWN 2018, IEEE WCNC 2018 conferences and Technical program co-chair in SecureEdge workshop at IEEE CIT 2017, MEC-IoT Workshop at 5GWF 2018 and Blockchain in IoT workshop at Globecom 2018 conferences. He has also served as the session chair in a number of other conferences including IEEE WCNC, EAI CROWNCOM, EAI 5GU, IEEE CIT, IEEE PIMRC, EAI BODYNET and IEEE 5GWF. He is also the demo chair for IEEE WCNC 2019, Webchair of ISWCS 2019 and PhD student forum committee co-chair of IEEE ANTS 2019. URL: http://madhusanka.com

An Braeken obtained her MSc Degree in Mathematics from the University of Gent in 2002. In 2006, she received her PhD in engineering sciences from the KULeuven at the research group COSIC (Computer Security and Industrial Cryptography). She became professor in 2007 at the Erasmushogeschool Brussel (currently since 2013, Vrije Universiteit Brussel) in the Industrial Sciences Department. Prior to joining the Erasmushogeschool Brussel, she worked for almost 2 years at the management consulting company Boston Consulting Group (BCG). Her current interests include security and privacy protocols for IoT, cloud and fog, blockchain and 5G security. She is (co-)author of over 120 publications. She has been member of the program committee for numerous conferences and workshops (IOP2018, EUC 2018, ICNS 2018, etc.) and member of the editorial board for Security and Communications magazine. She has also been member of the organizing committee for the IEEE Cloudtech 2018 conference and the Blockchain in IoT workshop at Globecom 2018. In addition, she is since 2015 reviewer for several EU proposals and ongoing projects, submitted under the programs of H2020, Marie Curie and ITN. She has cooperated and coordinated more than 12 national and international projects. She has been STSM manager in the COST AAPELE project (2014–2017) and is currently in the management committee of the COST RECODIS project (2016–2019).

Salil S. Kanhere received his M.S. and Ph.D. degrees, both in Electrical Engineering from Drexel University, Philadelphia. He is a Professor in the School of Computer Science and Engineering at UNSW Sydney, Australia. He is also a conjoint researcher at Data61 CSIRO, Faculty Associate at Institute of Infocomm Research Singapore and on the advisory board of two technology start-ups. His research interests include Internet of Things, pervasive computing, blockchain, crowdsourcing, data analytics, privacy and security. He has published over 170 peer-reviewed articles and delivered over 20 tutorials and keynote talks on these research topics. He has received 4 Best Paper Awards. His research has been featured on ABC News Australia, Forbes, Wired, ZDNET, MIT Technology Review, Computer World, IEEE Spectrum and other media outlets. Salil serves on the Steering Committee of IEEE LCN and is the program co-chair for IEEE WoWMoM 2018 and ACM MSWiM 2018. He regularly features on the organizing committee of a number of IEEE and ACM international conferences. He is on the Editorial Board of Elsevier's Pervasive and Mobile Computing and Computer Communications, serves as the Chair of the IEEE Computer Society's Technical Meeting Review Committee (TMRC) and on the Executive Committee of the IEEE Computer Society's Technical Committee on Computer Communications (TCCC). Salil is a Senior Member of both the IEEE and the ACM. He is a recipient of the Alexander von Humboldt Research Fellowship.

Prof. Mika Ylianttila is an associate professor at the Centre for Wireless Communications (CWC), at the Faculty of Information Technology and Electrical Engineering (ITEE), University of Oulu, Finland. Previously he was the director of the Center for Internet Excellence (2012–2015) and associate director of the MediaTeam research group (2009–2011), and professor (pro tem) in Information networks (2005–2010). He is also adjunct professor in Computer Science and Engineering (since 2007). He received his doctoral degree on Communications Engineering at the University of Oulu in 2005. He has coauthored more than 100 international peer-reviewed articles on broadband communications networks and systems, including aspects on network security, mobility management, distributed systems and novel applications. He is a Senior Member of IEEE, and Editor in Wireless Networks journal.