Cyber-physical security for IoT networks: a comprehensive review on traditional, blockchain and artificial intelligence based key-security

The recent years have garnered huge attention towards the Internet of Things (IoT) because it enables its consumers to improve their lifestyles and professionally keep up with the technological advancements in the cyber-physical world. The IoT edge devices are heterogeneous in terms of the technology they are built on and the storage file formats used. These devices require highly secure modes of mutual authentication to authenticate each other before actually sending the data. Mutual authentication is a very important aspect of peer-to-peer communication. Secure session keys enable these resource-constrained devices to authenticate each other. After successful authentication, a device can be authorized and can be granted access to shared resources. The need for validating a device requesting data transfer to avoid data privacy breaches that may compromise confidentiality and integrity. Blockchain and artificial intelligence (AI) both are extensively being used as an integrated part of IoT networks for security enhancements. Blockchain provides a decentralized mechanism to store validated session keys that can be allotted to the network devices. Blockchain is also used to load balance the stressing edge devices during low battery levels. AI on the other hand provides better learning and adaptiveness towards IoT attacks. The integration of newer technologies in IoT key management yields enhanced security features. In this article, we systematically survey recent trending technologies from an IoT security point of view and discuss traditional key security mechanisms. This article delivers a comprehensive quality study for researchers on authentication and session keys, integrating IoT with blockchain and AI-based authentication in cybersecurity.