Blockchain-Assisted Lightweight Authentication Protocol for Resource-Constrained IoT Devices in 5G Smart Environments

A Blockchain-Based Lightweight Authentication Framework for Secure Communication in IoT Networks

A lightweight blockchain-based authentication framework for secure communication in Internet of Things (IoT) networks that integrates a permissioned blockchain with ECC-256 to provide mutual authentication, data integrity, and non-repudiation for resource-constrained IoT devices.

OPAQUE-IoT: an optimization-driven PUF-Blockchain authenticated key agreement protocol with adaptive resource management for constrained IoT networks

OPAQUE-IoT, an Optimization-driven PUF-Blockchain AKA Protocol for constrained IoT networks integrates PUF-based hardware identity verification, a permissioned blockchain for decentralized trust management, and the Adaptive Security-Energy Trade-off Optimizer (ASETO), which jointly minimizes authentication latency and energy consumption under formal security constraints.

Blockchain-Assisted Authentication, Authorization, and Audit for MQTT-Based Smart-City IoT

Smart-city services increasingly rely on Internet of Things (IoT) deployments using lightweight Message Queuing Telemetry Transport (MQTT), yet weakly protected systems remain exposed to spoofing, unauthorized state changes, and limited accountability. This work evaluates blockchain and smart contracts as a complementary trust layer for MQTT-based smart-city IoT rather than as a replacement for transport-layer security. The proposed architecture provides owner-controlled device registration, per-sensor nonce management, replay-resistant Elliptic Curve Digital Signature Algorithm (ECDSA) authentication, authorization of state-changing operations, and tamper-evident event logging. MQTT confidentiality remains dependent on Transport Layer Security (TLS) or payload encryption. A prototype was implemented using ESP32 microcontrollers, a Raspberry Pi MQTT broker, Node-RED supervision, MongoDB storage, and Ethereum smart contracts deployed on Sepolia. The evaluation combines practical attack scenarios (unauthorized sensor modification, identity spoofing, and data manipulation) with measurements of blockchain latency, throughput, and gas consumption. Results show auditable nonce-bound signed updates, with mean transaction latency close to 12 s. Because the contract updates one sensor per transaction, costs are interpreted per confirmed write operation and scenario size. The findings position blockchain as an audit and policy-enforcement component for MQTT-based IoT.

A Hardware-Rooted Blockchain Security Framework for IoT With PUF-Based Authentication

By using PUF-generated responses as hardware-rooted seeds for mining and authentication, the framework removes the need for permanent secret storage and establishes a secure chain from device identity to consensus participation, making it suitable for practical deployment in industrial IoT, smart infrastructure, and other resource-constrained distributed systems.

Keychain-Based Re-Keying Function for Securing Device-to-Device Communications

Secure Device Authentication with Blockchain Based Trust Technique for IoT

With the rapid increase of Internet of Things (IoT) devices, it is a challenge to ensure secure and reliable device authentication. Conventional blockchain-based solutions provide immutability and transparency, but dynamic trust management is not present, resulting in limited scalability in heterogeneous IoT environments. To overcome these drawbacks, this study presents a blockchain-integrated trust-based authentication and access control framework designed specifically for IoT networks. The proposed model combines deterministic blockchain validation with probabilistic trust computation, enabling adaptive decision-making while preserving system integrity. Performance analysis highlights the efficiency of the approach: decryption consistently executes in less than one second, trust score evaluation completes within two seconds, and memory usage demonstrates storage efficiency. During trust updates, memory requirements peak at 173.1 MB, while image processing operations consume slightly more memory. Incremental growth during trust point updates is minimal, around 2.9 MB, indicating lightweight overhead. The results confirm that the architecture achieves a strong balance between security and performance, offering rapid authentication without compromising resource efficiency. By merging blockchain policy enforcement with trust reasoning, the framework advances current IoT security mechanisms and offers a scalable solution applicable across domains such as smart homes, industrial automation, and edge computing.