[News]Will blockchain emerge as a security method in the IoT field?

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ReapChain Official

4 min readJul 29, 2021

One of the fields of interest in the IT industry even before the 5G era was established is the Internet of Things (IoT). It is a technology that enhances convenience by mounting sensors and communication functions on various objects. For example, if an air conditioner is equipped with a temperature sensor, camera, and communication device, it analyzes the ambient temperature and movement of people to adjust the optimum temperature and wind strength. If you use the communication function, you can turn the power on and off from outside, and it is also possible to check the surrounding condition with the camera.

As a result, there is an active movement to integrate IoT technology across industries. There are various types of home appliances, furniture, automobiles, etc. According to data from Berg Insight, a market research firm, the global IoT platform size in 2017 was about $1.1 billion (equivalent to about KRW 1.326 trillion), growing at an average annual rate of 36% until 2022, about $4.9 billion. (equivalent to about 5.907 trillion won in Korean won) is expected to become a market.

It is a rapidly growing market, but at the same time, it is ‘security’ that is of concern. Since it is a structure in which data is exchanged and operated by being connected to the entire network rather than a physical device, the possibility of data stealing or tampering by external intrusion is high.

Gartner, a market research firm, illustrates this well. About 20% of companies surveyed have experienced at least one attack in the past three years. It is a serious problem if personal information and control over the device are changed by external intrusion. Accordingly, IoT companies are actively investing in security to prepare for external attacks. Gartner predicts that IoT security-related investments will reach approximately $3.1 billion by 2021.

Blockchain is a key technology that can ensure transparency, openness, and security.
it is technology Blockchain is a major technology that can ensure transparency, openness, and security.
There are many ways to prevent external intrusion, but one of the technologies that has recently been attracting attention is ‘Blockchain’. Blockchains link together the history programmed into blocks of data. Since the connected blocks are encrypted with common information, it is virtually difficult to tamper with data. To modulate one, you must modulate all data. The reason for the high reliability of this technology lies in this data chain structure.

If blockchain is introduced as a security system for the Internet of Things, an unalterable data chain is built for each device, making it theoretically difficult to break into each device. However, problems may arise during the verification process, so various verification methods are being introduced to improve the degree of completeness.

ReapChain, a domestic block chain company, tried to build security and efficiency together by introducing an infrastructure specialized for the Internet of Things and a hybrid block chain. Hybrid blockchain is a technology that connects a public (public) blockchain and a private (private) blockchain, or has two characteristics. Reapchain is a structure in which these two technologies are built in double. The developer calls this a shell-core structure.

Common blockchains are characterized by transparency and decentralization, while dedicated blockchains are known for their security and speed. In a reapchain, blocks that occur in chronological order are first processed as a dedicated blockchain, and the rest are stored in a public blockchain. In addition, a bicameral consensus algorithm was introduced, in which a total of 29 participants including 14 standing committee participants (nodes) and 15 operating committees, which are always operated, participate in the consensus for block generation.

In addition to security technology, the leaf software development tool(SDK), a software development tool for IoT devices, can prevent authentication of individual devices and data forgery. In addition, data verification, storage, and management are possible with the distributed storage service provided in ReapMiddleChain.