BLMA: Editable Blockchain-Based Lightweight Massive IIoT Device Authentication Protocol

Although combining the Internet of Things (IoT) and industrial scenarios has brought about a technological revolution, it has also caused equipment security issues. Due to the characteristics of Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) devices with a wide distribution, complex application scenarios, considerable differences in node performance, and device heterogeneity, spoofing attacks and third-party attacks are common. Identity authentication for IIoT devices can solve this dilemma. However, most existing authentication technologies involve a trade-off between traditional centralised certificate issuance and sacrificing device storage resources, resulting in lower efficiency of IIoT device authentication, and the process is complicated. Therefore, ensuring the security and trustworthiness of device identities in the IIoT is imminent. In this paper, we propose an IIoT device authentication scheme based on an editable blockchain, that can solve the problem of the device’s low energy while satisfying the useage needs of large-scale scenarios. In particular, we created a suite of secure, efficient, and innovative technical solutions for this protocol. Firstly, to solve the problem of the authentication difficulty between industrial devices, we propose a lightweight identity authentication protocol called BLMA. Moreover, we propose the vPBFT algorithm and introduce the online and offline signature algorithm to reduce communication overhead and resource consumption between devices. Finally, considering the top security and dynamics of the IIoT environment, we use the chameleon hash function to build a hash chain of authentication results. Extensive simulation and experimental results demonstrate the reliability of our protocol.