The Internet of Things (IoT) concept involves connecting devices to the internet and forming a network of objects that can collect information from the environment without human intervention. Although the IoT concept offers some advantages, it also has some issues that are associated with cyber security risks, such as the lack of detection of malicious wireless sensor network (WSN) nodes, lack of fault tolerance, weak authorization, and authentication of nodes, and the insecure management of received data from IoT devices. Considering the cybersecurity issues of IoT devices, there is an urgent need of finding new solutions that can increase the security level of WSNs. One issue that needs attention is the secure management and data storage for IoT devices. Most of the current solutions are based on systems that operate in a centralized manner, ecosystems that are easy to tamper with and provide no records regarding the traceability of the data collected from the sensors. In this paper, we propose an architecture based on blockchain technology for securing and managing data collected from IoT devices. By implementing blockchain technology, we provide a distributed data storage architecture, thus eliminating the need for a centralized network topology using blockchain advantages such as immutability, decentralization, distributivity, enhanced security, transparency, instant traceability, and increased efficiency through automation. From the obtained results, the proposed architecture ensures a high level of performance and can be used as a scalable, massive data storage solution for IoT devices using blockchain technologies. New WSN communication protocols can be easily enrolled in our data storage blockchain architecture without the need for retrofitting, as our system does not depend on any specific communication protocol and can be applied to any IoT application.

The Internet of Things has transformed industries, cities, and homes through a vast network of interconnected devices. As the IoT expands, the number of devices is projected to reach tens of billions, generating massive amounts of data. This growth presents significant data storage, management, and security challenges, especially in large-scale deployments such as smart cities and industrial operations. Traditional centralized solutions struggle to handle the high data volume and heterogeneity of IoT data, while ensuring real-time processing and interoperability. This paper presents the design, development, and evaluation of a blockchain framework tailored for the secure storage and management of data generated by IoT devices. Our framework introduces efficient methods for managing, transmitting, and securing data packets within a blockchain-enabled IoT network. The proposed framework uses a gateway node to aggregate multiple data packets into single transactions, increasing throughput, optimizing network bandwidth, reducing latency, simplifying data retrieval, and improving scalability. The results obtained from rigorous analysis and testing of the evaluated scenarios show that the proposed blockchain framework achieves a high level of performance, scalability, and efficiency while ensuring robust security being able to integrate a large number of IoT devices in a flexible manner.

Today, access control systems are used in almost every institution and building. This is because they are an effective solution that provides a high level of security. There are many commercially available systems that provide security-related access features for buildings, including biometric options. Most use a centralized architecture, where each building can be remotely controlled via an Internet connection. This paper presents a completely different system from those on the market, a decentralized system with clone-detection and data-integrity verification mechanisms that allows access to buildings. The overall architecture includes hardware encoding of the access system’s location, and access is granted based on information written to the RFID card by the card-issuing center. This allows the system to be easily reconfigured at the hardware level prior to installation in the access area. The proposed system uses a confidential RFID card data integrity algorithm that uses the card data and immutable UID to determine a checksum in order to validate the RFID card data. As a result, any unwanted modification of at least one bit invalidates the card and blocks access to the building. The system was implemented, validated, and extensively tested over a one-year period with no reported operational issues.

The transition from early non-standalone 5G deployments to 5G Standalone and, more recently, 5G-Advanced has turned mobile networks into flexible, programmable infrastructures capable of supporting private, industrial, and research-oriented deployments for the development of beyond-5G applications and architectures. Evaluating these networks’ capabilities, however, remains challenging because commercial platforms often provide limited access to internal interfaces, radio parameters, and network measurements. This paper presents an open-source private 5G SA testbed for beyond-5G application validations built using Open5GS, srsRAN, Ettus USRP N310 software-defined radio, programmable SIM cards, and commercial 5G customer-premise equipment. The platform is deployed in a semi-anechoic chamber. End-to-end operation is validated through subscriber registration, authentication, PDU session establishment, and external data connectivity. The performance of the implemented 5G network is evaluated using throughput, block error rate, modulation and coding scheme, and gNB trace logs. Unlike previous open-source 5G testbeds that primarily use RF waveguides, individual network components, or a limited set of radio configurations, the proposed platform combines COTS SIM-based UE operation with a controlled over-the-air evaluation of FDD/TDD and multiple antenna configurations and correlates application-level throughput with internal gNB radio metrics. For FDD downlink operation, the average throughput increased by approximately 74% from 1 × 1 to 2 × 2 and by a further 57% from 2 × 2 to 4 × 4, although the additional peak-throughput gain from 2 × 2 to 4 × 4 remained limited. The platform provides a reproducible environment for validating beyond-5G mechanisms, comparing network configurations, and studying the behavior of future open-source 5G SA systems under controlled conditions.