Hyperledger Fabric-Based Decentralized Role-Based Access Control for Sustainable and Resilient Industrial IoT Networks

The Internet of Things (IoT) has become a foundation of Industry 4.0 with numerous industrial facilities relying on smart sensors and actuators to optimize the efficiency of processes. Nevertheless, as IoT networks are adopted in industrial facilities, several security concerns arise. In industrial settings, IoT networks often involve the sharing of resources and sensitive data among a diverse set of users with different roles, increasing the potential for security breaches. Given the critical nature of industrial IoT networks, it is of high importance that only authorized users with pre-defined roles can access and interact with these systems. In this paper, we explore the potential of the blockchain technology to address this access control challenge for sustainable and resilient industrial IoT networks. Specifically, we propose a Hyperledger Fabric-based role-based access control (HF-RBAC) framework tailored for direct access control to IoT devices in industrial facilities. The proposed HF-RBAC solution leverages role-based access control principles to safeguard against outsiders and unauthorized insiders, mitigates single points of failure and ensuring continuous operation even under the Denial of Service (DoS) attack on the industrial IoT network leader.