How Blockchain Can Solve Many of IoT’s Current Challenges
The internet of things (IoT) is a system designed for smart devices to interact as humans do by means of the internet. It is a relatively new piece of technology that is gaining some popularity right now. On the other hand, blockchain technology is also becoming more popular due to its use by many cryptocurrencies in the market today.
These two pieces of technology are both on the rise and could actually benefit each other. But how exactly is that possible? Let’s discuss how important the role of blockchain technology is in the implementation of IoT applications.
Current Challenges of IoT Applications
IoT has several applications right now, and still, more are being discovered. From multiple smart home devices communicating with each other to elderly care monitoring and even autonomous vehicles.
The issues, methods, and ways to apply IoT constantly appear. However, as more applications are being developed, so do the security and scaling required to make them work. These two things will be the main difficulties for IoT development in the next few years. To overcome these challenges, there seems to be one solution that can help IoT applications—blockchain technology.
Let’s enumerate the major gaps in IoT applications that can be easily overcome through the effective use of blockchain technology.
- Out of Date Firmware – Not many suppliers offer regular updates for their IoT solutions, and not many users will update the firmware when a new version is available. This can be quite a problem as firmware updates are crucial to any device connected through the internet. The security risks alone of outdated firmware will pose many problems to the users of the devices.
- Weak Authentication – Many IoT solutions use simple authentication for applications with strong programmed passwords. However, no matter how strong the passwords are, they can still be compromised by hackers with minimal effort. A simple brute-force strategy can blast through this since it has little to no authentication measures.
- Unsecure Connection – Security has always been a leading concern by mainly manufacturers and experts in IoT applications. Many data leaks in IoT are actually the consequence of poor security measures during the data transfer between two devices or even from an IoT device to the cloud.
How Can Blockchain Overcome These Challenges?
All these issues can be easily solved by blockchain technology. With the increased safety and security measures offered by a shared ledger like the blockchain, all the outdated software and security issues can be easily resolved.
Blockchain also has the ability to hide the connection between devices, which is a great advantage since it offers transaction validation without third-party implementation. This lowers the risks of data leaking and IoT network hacking.
In terms of scaling, decentralized blockchain networks share the workload, which provides improved transaction processing and increases the coordination between billions of IoT devices that are connected to it. In fact, blockchain even allows devices to transfer data directly, even without the help of servers, clouds, or local databases.
Conclusion
The integration of blockchain technology and IoT are showing quite a lot of promise. The promise of connectivity by IoT devices comes with a lot of security vulnerabilities, which are easily resolved by blockchain technology. This relationship between the two types of technologies will prove to be useful to every industry in the foreseeable future.
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