ENHANCING IOT SECURITY USING LIGHTWEIGHT BLOCKCHAIN FOR DATA INTEGRITY AND TRACEABILITY

Abstract

The rapid growth of the Internet of Things (IoT) has introduced unprecedented challenges related to data integrity, traceability, and security due to the large-scale deployment of resource-constrained devices and decentralized data generation. Traditional centralized architectures are vulnerable to single points of failure, unauthorized data manipulation, and limited transparency. Blockchain technology, with its decentralized, immutable, and tamper-resistant characteristics, has emerged as a promising solution to enhance IoT security. However, conventional blockchain frameworks suffer from high computational overhead, storage requirements, and latency, making them unsuitable for IoT environments. This research focuses on the design and implementation of a lightweight blockchain architecture tailored for IoT networks to ensure secure data integrity and traceability while minimizing resource consumption. The proposed system introduces optimized consensus mechanisms, lightweight cryptographic operations, and hierarchical network structures to reduce latency and energy consumption. Additionally, integration with communication protocols such as LoRaWAN enables efficient data transmission and validation across distributed IoT nodes. The architecture supports secure data logging, device authentication, and real-time monitoring without relying on centralized authorities. Experimental evaluation demonstrates that the lightweight blockchain significantly reduces computational complexity, improves transaction throughput, and maintains high levels of data integrity compared to traditional blockchain systems. Furthermore, the system ensures traceability by providing an immutable audit trail for IoT data transactions, which is critical for applications such as smart cities, healthcare, and supply chain management. The findings highlight that lightweight blockchain solutions can bridge the gap between blockchain capabilities and IoT constraints, offering scalable, secure, and efficient frameworks for next-generation IoT ecosystems.