Blockchain-based Framework for Secure Data Streams Dissemination in Federated IoT Environments

An industrial-scale increase of applications of the Internet of Things, a significant number of which are based on the concept of federation, presents unique security challenges due to their distributed nature and the need for secure communication between components from different administrative domains. The heterogeneity of devices, protocols, and security requirements in different domains further complicates the requirements for the secure distribution of data streams in Federated IoT Environments. The effective dissemination of data streams in federated environments also ensures the flexibility to filter and search for patterns in real-time to detect critical events or various types of threats (e.g., fires, hostile objects) with changing information needs of end users. Some known solutions and best practices for the secure distribution of data streams in such environments include end-to-end encryption, authentication of both IoT devices and data, and the use of blockchain (Distributed Ledger Technology, DLT). This paper presents a novel and practical framework for the secure, reliable, and dynamic dissemination of data streams within a multi-organizational federation environment. The framework integrates different technologies, such as Hyperledger Fabric (to implement a resilient authentication and authorization mechanism), Apache Kafka as data queuing technology, and microservice processing logic for verifying and disseminating data streams. However, integrating DLT, Kafka brokers, and streams microservices within the federation raises important questions regarding performance, security, and reliability. In the paper, we focus mainly on the scalability, throughput, latency, and potential bottlenecks. We thoroughly validated the effectiveness of the proposed framework by conducting extensive performance tests in two setups: the cloud-based and the resource-constrained environments.