Lightweight Blockchain-Based Access Control for Smart IoT Devices

Lightweight Blockchain-Based Access Control for Smart IoT Devices | Research Square window.SnipcartSettings = { analytics: { enabled: false } }; (function() { var accessVector = localStorage.getItem('access_vector') || ''; window.dataLayer = window.dataLayer || []; if (accessVector) { window.dataLayer.push({ user: { profile: { profileInfo: { snid: accessVector } } } }); } })(); (function(w,d,s,l,i){w[l]=w[l]||[];w[l].push({'gtm.start':new Date().getTime(),event:'gtm.js'});var f=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0],j=d.createElement(s),dl=l!='dataLayer'?'&l='+l:'';j.async=true;j.src='https://www.googletagmanager.com/gtm.js?id='+i+dl;f.parentNode.insertBefore(j,f);})(window,document,'script','dataLayer','GTM-K279D39R'); Browse Preprints In Review Journals COVID-19 Preprints AJE Video Bytes Research Tools Research Promotion AJE Professional Editing AJE Rubriq About Preprint Platform In Review Editorial Policies Our Team Advisory Board Help Center Sign In Submit a Preprint Cite Share Download PDF Research Article Lightweight Blockchain-Based Access Control for Smart IoT Devices Chandra Prakash Singh, Rohita Yamagati, Lokendra Singh Umrao This is a preprint; it has not been peer reviewed by a journal. https://doi.org/ 10.21203/rs.3.rs-6332530/v1 This work is licensed under a CC BY 4.0 License Status: Posted Version 1 posted You are reading this latest preprint version Abstract Due to the rapid expansion of smart cities, security threats have peaked in the form of cyber security threats especially in the case of IoT based access control system. In general, centralized access control mechanisms are the SOFT SPOTS for breaches of personal data and unauthorized access. This paper presents SecureBlock, a lightweight blockchain based framework to address the above challenges for decentralized and cyber resilient access control in the smart cities. SecureBlock employs hybrid consensus (PBFT + PoA) in order to provide tamper resistant, low latency and scalable authentication for intelligent IoT devices. The key functionality of the framework encompasses four layers: including (1) the IoT Security Layer for the real-time access authentication, (2) the Blockchain Layer for the distributed access logs, (3) the Threat Intelligence Layer for the AI based robust anomaly monitoring and (4) the Smart Contract Layer that deploys Cyber Resilient Smart Contract (CRSC) for the autonomous response to threats. Contrary to the typical Role Based Access Control (RBAC), or centralized OAuth, the SecureBlock authentication is real time, immutable, trustless — and consequently, extremely low risk of spoofing identity and intrusions. Hyperledger Fabric is used for the deployment of the blockchain and Flask & SQLite is used for IoT authentication with Python. The metrics such as authentication latency, transaction throughput (TPS) and energy consumption are analyzed. The results show that SecureBlock can achieve to authenticate up to 50 percent faster than the traditional blockchain models and reduce to up to 30 percent energy consumption. In addition, AI based anomaly detection in CRSC allows for high levels of cyber security with an accuracy greater than 90%. Thus, this research illustrates the application of blockchain in the area of smart cities, as a secure, decentralized and scalable platform to access control and thus resulting in a more cyber resilient smart city. Future work will be to deploy SecureBlock in real world urban environment and integrate machine learning adaptive secure policies into the next generation IoT cyber security for smart cities. Blockchain-Based Access Control Cyber security in Smart Cities IoT Authentication Hybrid Consensus (POA + PBFT) Cyber-Resilient Smart Contracts (CRSC) Anomaly Detection In IoT Decentralized Identity Management Full Text Additional Declarations No competing interests reported. Cite Share Download PDF Status: Posted Version 1 posted You are reading this latest preprint version Research Square lets you share your work early, gain feedback from the community, and start making changes to your manuscript prior to peer review in a journal. As a division of Research Square Company, we’re committed to making research communication faster, fairer, and more useful. We do this by developing innovative software and high quality services for the global research community. Our growing team is made up of researchers and industry professionals working together to solve the most critical problems facing scientific publishing. Also discoverable on Platform About Our Team In Review Editorial Policies Advisory Board Help Center Resources Author Services Accessibility API Access RSS feed Manage Cookie Preferences © Research Square 2026 | ISSN 2693-5015 (online) Privacy Policy Terms of Service Do Not Sell My Personal Information {"props":{"pageProps":{"initialData":{"identity":"rs-6332530","acceptedTermsAndConditions":true,"allowDirectSubmit":false,"archivedVersions":[],"articleType":"Research Article","associatedPublications":[],"authors":[{"id":438874977,"identity":"e3781f0c-3cd1-4de6-8784-6b4e32ddb069","order_by":0,"name":"Chandra Prakash Singh","email":"","orcid":"","institution":"P.K. University Shivpuri (M.P.)","correspondingAuthor":false,"prefix":"","firstName":"Chandra","middleName":"Prakash","lastName":"Singh","suffix":""},{"id":438874978,"identity":"a933c944-6719-4c8d-bd58-d6cf0971dc6c","order_by":1,"name":"Rohita Yamagati","email":"","orcid":"","institution":"P.K. 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In general, centralized access control mechanisms are the SOFT SPOTS for breaches of personal data and unauthorized access. This paper presents SecureBlock, a lightweight blockchain based framework to address the above challenges for decentralized and cyber resilient access control in the smart cities. SecureBlock employs hybrid consensus (PBFT\u0026thinsp;+\u0026thinsp;PoA) in order to provide tamper resistant, low latency and scalable authentication for intelligent IoT devices. The key functionality of the framework encompasses four layers: including (1) the IoT Security Layer for the real-time access authentication, (2) the Blockchain Layer for the distributed access logs, (3) the Threat Intelligence Layer for the AI based robust anomaly monitoring and (4) the Smart Contract Layer that deploys Cyber Resilient Smart Contract (CRSC) for the autonomous response to threats. Contrary to the typical Role Based Access Control (RBAC), or centralized OAuth, the SecureBlock authentication is real time, immutable, trustless \u0026mdash; and consequently, extremely low risk of spoofing identity and intrusions.\u003c/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eHyperledger Fabric is used for the deployment of the blockchain and Flask \u0026amp; SQLite is used for IoT authentication with Python. The metrics such as authentication latency, transaction throughput (TPS) and energy consumption are analyzed. The results show that SecureBlock can achieve to authenticate up to 50 percent faster than the traditional blockchain models and reduce to up to 30 percent energy consumption. In addition, AI based anomaly detection in CRSC allows for high levels of cyber security with an accuracy greater than 90%. Thus, this research illustrates the application of blockchain in the area of smart cities, as a secure, decentralized and scalable platform to access control and thus resulting in a more cyber resilient smart city. Future work will be to deploy SecureBlock in real world urban environment and integrate machine learning adaptive secure policies into the next generation IoT cyber security for smart cities.\u003c/p\u003e","manuscriptTitle":"Lightweight Blockchain-Based Access Control for Smart IoT Devices","msid":"","msnumber":"","nonDraftVersions":[{"code":1,"date":"2025-07-30 04:57:09","doi":"10.21203/rs.3.rs-6332530/v1","editorialEvents":[{"type":"communityComments","content":0}],"status":"published","journal":{"display":true,"email":"[email protected]","identity":"researchsquare","isNatureJournal":false,"hasQc":true,"allowDirectSubmit":true,"externalIdentity":"","sideBox":"","snPcode":"","submissionUrl":"/submission","title":"Research Square","twitterHandle":"researchsquare","acdcEnabled":true,"dfaEnabled":false,"editorialSystem":"","reportingPortfolio":"","inReviewEnabled":false,"inReviewRevisionsEnabled":true}}],"origin":"","ownerIdentity":"c30c5ded-e592-4a74-9901-8d8f0ef0a916","owner":[],"postedDate":"July 30th, 2025","published":true,"recentEditorialEvents":[],"rejectedJournal":[],"revision":"","amendment":"","status":"posted","subjectAreas":[],"tags":[],"updatedAt":"2025-07-30T04:57:09+00:00","versionOfRecord":[],"versionCreatedAt":"2025-07-30 04:57:09","video":"","vorDoi":"","vorDoiUrl":"","workflowStages":[]},"version":"v1","identity":"rs-6332530","journalConfig":"researchsquare"},"__N_SSP":true},"page":"/article/[identity]/[[...version]]","query":{"redirect":"/article/rs-6332530","identity":"rs-6332530","version":["v1"]},"buildId":"8U1c8b4HqxoKbykW_rLl7","isFallback":false,"isExperimentalCompile":false,"dynamicIds":[84888],"gssp":true,"scriptLoader":[]}