Hyperledger-based secure firmware update delivery for IoT devices

Abstract

The increase of relying on intelligent and connected devices in our home, company, and everyday life aspect leads to the rapid growth of the Internet of Things (IoT) technology. While some IoT devices communicate without the involvement of users, their functionalities must be protected against various attacks. This work proposes the delivery of a secure firmware update to IoT devices. Ensuring fast firmware updates should be implemented using a trusted network. In our proposal, we deployed blockchain to be our trusted network. The approach will be based on securely verifying the firmware version of the IoT device, validating the integrity of the firmware file, downloading the latest version of the firmware update. The primary objective is to mitigate the attacks targeting firmware updates of embedded devices by maintaining and guaranteeing the firmware is up-to-date and not altered in the IoT devices.