A trustworthy multiparty authentication architecture for IIoT leveraging IOTA integration

Abstract

The rapid adoption of developing technologies, particularly the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT), has raised significant security and privacy concerns. IIoT seeks to enhance industrial operations through the integration of specialised devices, primarily sensors, within the industrial environment. These sensors continuously monitor multiple processes while providing essential data to maintain proper functionality. However, safeguarding IIoT systems is especially complex because of the variety of devices, makers, and networks; the need for collaboration across several security domains; and the constraints of resource- constrained devices. Conventional security systems struggle to adapt, especially when users and services interact dynamically across several IoT networks. To address these issues, this research introduces a novel multi-party authentication architecture that enables secure and dynamic communication among participants from different security groups. The design enables the secure exchange of shared secrets for session authentication while protecting security credentials during resource access. One significant advance is the integration of IOTA distributed ledger technology (DLT) alongside IoT systems to enable multi-party authentication. Specifically, the IOTA Streams protocol is used to enable structured, secure, and scalable data sharing while maintaining data integrity, privacy, and authenticated access. The NuSMV model checker is employed to verify the effectiveness as well as security of the proposed authentication approach. It ensures fulfilment of security requirements and operational functionality.