Secure IoT data dissemination with blockchain and transfer learning techniques

Sci Rep. 2025 Jan 11;15(1):1665. doi: 10.1038/s41598-024-84837-8.

Abstract

In smart applications, streaming IoT data is essential to building trust in sustainable IoT solutions. However, most existing systems for storing and disseminating IoT data streams lack reliability, security, and transparency, primarily due to centralized architectures that create single points of failure. To address these limitations, this research introduces TraVel, a blockchain and transfer learning-based framework for secure IoT data management. TraVel leverages decentralized IPFS storage to handle large data volumes effectively, integrating with a private Ethereum blockchain to enhance data integrity and accessibility. In the proposed scheme, the smart home ([Formula: see text]) data is collected securely and accessed over the BC with a unique hash key generated on the IPFS for all the files. Self-executing Ethereum smart contracts enforce access control and verify data integrity, allowing only validated, non-malicious data to be stored. An adversarial domain adaptation (DA) learning model is employed to detect and filter malicious data before it enters the blockchain. TraVel's performance is evaluated on blockchain parameters, with simulations conducted on REMIX IDE and InterPlanetary File System (IPFS), demonstrating its reliability and scalability for secure IoT data dissemination.

Keywords: Attacks; Blockchain; DANN; Domain adaptation; IoT; Smart contract; Smart home; TL.