Nowadays, we are surrounded by a large number of IoT (Internet of Things) devices and sensors. These devices are designed to make life easier and more comfortable. Blockchain technology, especially its mass application, is becoming a term number one. Adoption of blockchain into enterprise networks still has a few challenges that need to be tackled. Utilizing blockchain can bring increased security and efficiency of network maintenance. The key feature of the blockchain, immutability, brings resistance to unauthorized modifications. The whole history of device configuration changes is stored in the blockchain, hence recovery after incidents is very straightforward. This paper extends our previous studies. We are introducing an improved architecture for management and monitoring of IoT devices using a private blockchain. The majority of the system is built on a chaincode, which handles CRUD (Create, Read, Update, Delete) operations as well as encryption and access control. Device configuration files are stored in the blockchain. When a modification occurs, the device downloads a new configuration in a simple manner. The chaincode receives notification whether setup was successful and this history is available for administrators. Our results show that such a system is possible and dissemination of configuration changes to IoT devices can be secured by the blockchain. The key novelty of our solution is a distributed management of configuration files of IoT devices in enterprise networks utilizing blockchain technology. This is essentially improving security and storage options for configurations in the blockchain.

The whole Internet consists of thousands of autonomous systems that transfer data with one another. The BGP plays a significant role in routing, but its behaviour is essentially naive, trusting neighbours without authenticating advertised IP prefixes. This is the main reason why BGP endures various path manipulation attacks. Recently, conventional methods for securing BGP have been implemented, i.e., BGPSec with RPKI. However, these approaches are centralised with a single point of failure that may be compromised, invalidating the whole security mechanism. There have been multiple decentralised projects dealing with various mechanisms, mostly built on Ethereum and blockchain networks. Some with ambition to strengthen existing centralised mechanisms, others to replace them. In this article, we present the first comprehensive survey on blockchain solutions to enforce BGP security, with complex explanations of their contributions and a comparison with different aspects. We explain how blockchain technology can provide an alternative to prevent the false origin of IP prefixes or hijacking AS paths. Moreover, we describe new blockchain-based attacks that BGP would face after the inclusion of blockchain into the inter-domain routing. Finally, we answer the defined research questions and discuss the potential open issues for further study.

Wireless Local Area Network (WLAN) infrastructure is a dominant technology for direct access to the Internet and for cellular mobile data traffic offloading to WLANs. Additionally, the enterprise infrastructure can be used to provide functionality for the Internet of Things and Machine to Machine scenarios. This work is focused on improvements of radio resources control scalability similar to mobile networks via handover between cells. We introduce an improved IEEE 802.11 architecture utilizing Software-Defined Networks (SDNs). The proposed architecture allows communications during device movements without losing a quality of service (QoS). The fast seamless handover with QoS enables efficient usage of radio resources in large networks. Our improvements consist of integrating wireless management to OpenFlow protocol, separating encryption and decryption from an access point. In parallel, this feature as a side effect unloads processing at the Access Points (APs). Finally, the functionality of architecture design and scalability was proven by Colored Petri Nets (CPNs). The second proof of our concept was performed on two scenarios. The first scenario was applied to a delay sensitive use case. The second scenario considers a network congestion in real world conditions. Client’s mobility was integrated into both scenarios. The design was developed to demonstrate SDN WLAN architecture efficiency.

Communication on the Internet consisting of a massive number of Autonomous Systems (AS) depends on routing based on Border Gateway Protocol (BGP). Routers generally trust the veracity of information in BGP updates from their neighbors, as with many other routing protocols. However, this trust leaves the whole system vulnerable to multiple attacks, such as BGP hijacking. Several solutions have been proposed to increase the security of BGP routing protocol, most based on centralized Public Key Infrastructure, but their adoption has been relatively slow. Additionally, these solutions are open to attack on this centralized system. Decentralized alternatives utilizing blockchain to validate BGP updates have recently been proposed. The distributed nature of blockchain and its trustless environment increase the overall system security and conform to the distributed character of the BGP. All of the techniques based on blockchain concentrate on inspecting incoming BGP updates only. In this paper, we improve on these by modifying an existing architecture for the management of network devices. The original architecture adopted a private blockchain implementation of HyperLedger. On the other hand, we use the public blockchain Ethereum, more specifically the Ropsten testing environment. Our solution provides a module design for the management of AS border routers. It enables verification of the prefixes even before any router sends BGP updates announcing them. Thus, we eliminate fraudulent BGP origin announcements from the AS deploying our solution. Furthermore, blockchain provides storage options for configurations of edge routers and keeps the irrefutable history of all changes. We can analyze router settings history to detect whether the router advertised incorrect information, when and for how long.

This paper addresses the issue of sustainability in retail sales, where the composition of the products themselves, their production and packaging process, and their transport to the point of sale play an important role. We propose a solution to apply a unified system of environmental product rating in different retail chains where trust is ensured through a distributed ledger. The system allows fair and transparent rewards for customers who purchase eco-friendly products while also maintaining their privacy. The prototype of the decentralized application for the uniform loyalty system based on the Algorand blockchain has shown promising results in terms of throughput and cost efficiency. We believe that the prototype has the potential to revolutionize loyalty systems and promote sustainable practices. This study provides key insights into how to interconnect retailers and customers into a uniform reward program, how to motivate customers to purchase sustainable and eco-friendly goods, and how retailers can manage the amount of reward for the given Eco-score categories.

The first blockchain projects were not built with interoperability in mind. This idea became more popular later as development progressed, and there was a need for the ability to share assets and messages with other blockchain networks. Some of the blockchains that were not made with an interoperability focus started realizing that it was where the future was headed and implemented interoperability that existed, or they created their own way of communicating with other networks. To this day, many protocols are being built that enhance interoperability. Blockchain interoperability refers to the ability of different blockchain systems to work together and communicate with each other. This is an important concept for the future of blockchain technology, as it enables different blockchain networks to exchange information and assets seamlessly. This paper focuses on enhancing the interoperability between Paraverse and the specific network called Polkadot. This is achieved by using the network-specific native protocol for interoperability, called XCMP. The results show that not only is ParaSpell SDK a useful contribution to the Polkadot ecosystem, but it also makes interoperable transactions easier and more user-friendly.