Abstract

The rapid increase in the number and diversity of smart devices connected to the Internet has raised the issues of flexibility, efficiency, availability, security, and scalability within the current IoT network. These issues are caused by key mechanisms being distributed to the IoT network on a large scale, which is why a distributed secure SDN architecture for IoT using the blockchain technique (DistBlockNet) is proposed in this research. It follows the principles required for designing a secure, scalable, and efficient network architecture. The DistBlockNet model of IoT architecture combines the advantages of two emerging technologies: SDN and blockchains technology. In a verifiable manner, blockchains allow us to have a distributed peer-to-peer network where non-confident members can interact with each other without a trusted intermediary. A new scheme for updating a flow rule table using a blockchains technique is proposed to securely verify a version of the flow rule table, validate the flow rule table, and download the latest flow rules table for the IoT forwarding devices. In our proposed architecture, security must automatically adapt to the threat landscape, without administrator needs to review and apply thousands of recommendations and opinions manually. We have evaluated the performance of our proposed model architecture and compared it to the existing model with respect to various metrics. The results of our evaluation show that DistBlockNet is capable of detecting attacks in the IoT network in real time with low performance overheads and satisfying the design principles required for the future IoT network.

Introduction

According to the recent Gartner’s report [1], 1 million new Internet of Things (IoT) devices will be sold every hour, and $2.5 million will be spent per minute on IoT by 2021. We believe that the idea of a distributed IoT network is promising. Meanwhile, software defined networking (SDN) empowers easy management and network programmability [2]. Initially, it brings up some issues of security, performance, reliability, and scalability due to the centralized control architecture. Recently, numerous distributed SDN controllers have been introduced to address these issues [3-5]. Most of the existing work emphasizes the issue of state consistency among multiple controllers. The mapping between the controllers and the forwarding devices is statically configured, which can result in uneven distribution of loads between the controllers and bursting packets breaking down the controller. In addition to these issues, we need a low response time and distributed SDN network with high availability. Some methods try to offer a reliable and scalable solution to the distributed network for management [6–۱۰], but none of them have completely solved this problem. On the other hand, blockchains have recently drawn much attention from interested stakeholders in a wide range of industries [11, 12]. The reason behind this explosion of interest is that with the blockchains technique, we can operate the applications in a distributed manner that could previously run through a trusted intermediary. We can accomplish the same functionality with the same assurance without the need for a central authority. The blockchains technique offers a distributed peer-to-peer network where, without a trusted intermediary, untrusted individuals can interact in a verifiable manner with each other [13, 14].