Blockchain Platforms and Access Control Classification for IoT Systems

The Internet of Things paradigm is growing rapidly. In fact, controlling this massive growth of IoT globally raises new security and privacy issues. The traditional access control mechanisms provide security to IoT systems such as DAC (discretionary access control) and mandatory access control (MAC). However, these mechanisms are based on central authority management, which raises some issues such as absence of scalability, single point of failure, and lack of privacy. Recently, the decentralized and immutable nature of blockchain technology integrated with access control can help to overcome privacy and security issues in the IoT. This paper presents a review of different access control mechanisms in IoT systems. We present a comparison table of reviewed access control mechanisms. The mechanisms’ scalability, distribution, security, user-centric, privacy and policy enforcing are compared. In addition, we provide access control classifications. Finally, we highlight challenges and future research directions in developing decentralized access control mechanisms for IoT systems.