An Efficient Smart Contract-Based Secure Data Sharing Framework for IoT with Optimized Access Control and Reduced Overhead

Abstract

The blistering development of Internet of Things (IoT) devices has added pressure on the effective sharing of data, maintenance of privacy, and effective control of access. Although blockchain technology offers trust and decentralization, its direct connection to IoT systems usually introduces high computational cost and latency as a result of the repetition of smart contract execution and logging of every transaction. The current paper suggests a lightweight smart contract-based secure data-sharing model of the IoT that optimizes access control through the application of selective verification and minimized transaction logging. The proposed approach does not verify all verification procedures on each request, but only the necessary parameters and document only important access events on the blockchain, reducing the additional computation and storage costs. To determine the effectiveness of the proposed framework relative to a more traditional access-control framework, a simulation-based analysis is performed that compares the proposed framework with a standard access-control framework in terms of performance resources like response time, operating overhead, and authorization efficiency. The findings indicate that the suggested solution produces about 50% decrease in response time and processing cycles and ensures safe and regulated access to data. The results show that the efficiency of blockchain-based IoT systems can be effectively enhanced through redesigning access-control processes instead of adding complexity to the system, which makes the framework proposed in the study applicable in the context of the resource-constrained IoT solutions.