Citation: Ghovanlooy Ghajar, F.;
Sikora, A.; Welte, D. Schloss:
Blockchain-Based System
Architecture for Secure Industrial IoT.
Electronics 2022, 11, 1629. https://
doi.org/10.3390/electronics11101629
Academic Editors: Junaid Arshad,
Jonathan Loo and Omair Shafiq
Received: 19 April 2022
Accepted: 18 May 2022
Published: 20 May 2022
Publisher’s Note: MDPI stays neutral
with regard to jurisdictional claims in
published maps and institutional affil-
iations.
Copyright: © 2022 by the authors.
Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland.
This article is an open access article
distributed under the terms and
conditions of the Creative Commons
Attribution (CC BY) license (https://
creativecommons.org/licenses/by/
4.0/).
electronics
Article
Schloss: Blockchain-Based System Architecture for Secure
Industrial IoT
Fatemeh Ghovanlooy Ghajar * , Axel Sikora and Dominik Welte
Institute of Reliable Embedded Systems and Communication Electronics (ivESK), Offenburg University of
Applied Sciences, 77652 Offenburg, Germany; axel.sikora@hs-offenburg.de (A.S.);
dominik.welte@hs-offenburg.de (D.W.)
* Correspondence: fatemeh.ghovanlooy@hs-offenburg.de
Abstract: Industrial companies can use blockchain to assist them in resolving their trust and security
issues. In this research, we provide a fully distributed blockchain-based architecture for industrial
IoT, relying on trust management and reputation to enhance nodes’ trustworthiness. The purpose
of this contribution is to introduce our system architecture to show how to secure network access
for users with dynamic authorization management. All decisions in the system are made by trustful
nodes’ consensus and are fully distributed. The remarkable feature of this system architecture is that
the influence of the nodes’ power is lowered depending on their Proof of Work (PoW) and Proof of
Stake (PoS), and the nodes’ significance and authority is determined by their behavior in the network.
This impact is based on game theory and an incentive mechanism for reputation between nodes. This
system design can be used on legacy machines, which means that security and distributed systems
can be put in place at a low cost on industrial systems. While there are no numerical results yet, this
work, based on the open questions regarding the majority problem and the proposed solutions based
on a game-theoretic mechanism and a trust management system, points to what and how industrial
IoT and existing blockchain frameworks that are focusing only on the power of PoW and PoS can be
secured more effectively.
Keywords: security; trust management; authorization; authentication; blockchain; Industry 4.0; game
theory
1. Introduction
The Internet of Things (IoT) has fundamentally altered how individuals interact with
their environment during the last several years [1]. However, it may also be used in indus-
trial domains, such as machinery, control systems, and information systems, as part of the
so-called Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) [2]. The IIoT seeks to revolutionize conven-
tional production and usher in an intelligent age of highly linked machines. Industrial data
should be collected and then utilized to improve production performance and management
efficiency. However, owing to the geographical dispersion of IIoT devices and the variance
of standards, connectivity is difficult [1]. Additionally, there are concerns about the security
of the device’s massive volume of data.
Despite the technical challenges, a vast number of companies have embraced IIoT
solutions as a way to enhance their operations. However, as was quickly discovered, one of
the major problems with this approach is that these new technologies greatly increase the
industrial environment’s exposure to cyberattacks [3].
Moreover, with the emergence of IIoT, the security vulnerabilities posed by it are even
more devastating. As a distributed ledger and decentralized database, blockchain has the
ability to establish a secure value exchange system. Due to its appealing characteristics,
blockchain is an excellent option for use in IIoT systems [4]. Although IIoT and blockchain
are two distinct technologies, their convergence represents a paradigm change that is
predicted to boost industrial communication.
Electronics 2022, 11, 1629. https://doi.org/10.3390/electronics11101629 https://www.mdpi.com/journal/electronics