Security Challenges and Opportunities for Smart Contracts in Internet of Things: A Survey
Abstract
Smart contracts, one of the success stories in blockchain 2.0, have been widely utilized in a broad range of applications, including those involving Internet of Things (IoT). Given the fast-pace nature of the topic, it can be challenging for the research community to keep track of the latest advances. Hence, in this article, we perform a comprehensive, in-depth review of known security challenges (e.g., inherently vulnerable particularities, programming vulnerabilities, and attacks) and potential research opportunities associated with the deploying of smart contracts in an IoT setting. We hope this survey will serve as a starting point for the readers seeking to understand and explore the potential applications of smart contracts.
Integrity signals
Registry
Cites
Statistics
Claims the paper makes
Claims other papers make about this one
Each is checked against this paper’s own text: does it say what the citing paper says it does?
Peng et al. [11] explored vulnerabilities and attacks in smart contracts that may affect IoT ecosystem stability, systematically reviewed privacy security issues and solutions in smart contracts and IoT integration, and outlined challenges and future directions.
“Peng et al. [11] explored vulnerabilities and attacks in smart contracts, which may seriously affect the stability of the IoT ecosystem. Specifically, the author systematically reviewed the privacy security issues and solutions in the integration of smart contracts and the IoT, summarized and compared the latest progress of corresponding solutions in three aspects of security issues, and finally”
From A Survey of IoT Privacy Security: Architecture, Technology, Challenges, and Trends (2024) · cites this paper as [11]
Cites
Internet of Things: A Survey on Enabling Technologies, Protocols, and Applications
Al-Fuqaha, A., Guizani, M., Mohammadi, M., Aledhari, M., & Ayyash, M. (2015) · IEEE Communications Surveys & Tutorials · doi:10.1109/comst.2015.2444095 · Cited by 8,630 · see citing works
Blockchains and smart contracts for the internet of things
Christidis, K., & Devetsikiotis, M. (2016) · IEEE Access · doi:10.1109/access.2016.2566339 · Cited by 4,552 · see citing works
A Survey of Attacks on Ethereum Smart Contracts (SoK)
Atzei, N., Bartoletti, M., & Cimoli, T. (2017) · Lecture Notes in Computer Science · doi:10.1007/978-3-662-54455-6_8 · Cited by 1,553 · see citing works
Smart contract-based access control for the internet of things
Zhang, Y., Kasahara, S., Shen, Y., Jiang, X., & Wan, J. (2019) · IEEE Internet of Things Journal · doi:10.1109/jiot.2018.2847705 · Cited by 788 · see citing works
Bubbles of Trust: A decentralized blockchain-based authentication system for IoT
Hammi, M. T., Hammi, B., Bellot, P., & Serhrouchni, A. (2018) · Computers & Security · doi:10.1016/j.cose.2018.06.004 · Cited by 691 · see citing works
Blockchains everywhere - a use-case of blockchains in the pharma supply-chain
Bocek, T., Rodrigues, B. B., Strasser, T., & Stiller, B. (2017) · 2017 IFIP/IEEE Symposium on Integrated Network and Service Management (IM) · doi:10.23919/inm.2017.7987376 · Cited by 585 · see citing works
How blockchain improves the supply chain: Case study alimentary supply chain
Casado-Vara, R., Prieto, J., la Prieta, F. D., & Corchado, J. M. (2018) · Procedia Computer Science · doi:10.1016/j.procs.2018.07.193 · Cited by 450 · see citing works
Blockchain for smart communities: applications, challenges and opportunities
Aggarwal, S., Chaudhary, R., Aujla, G. S., Kumar, N., Choo, K.-K. R., & Zomaya, A. Y. (2019) · Journal of Network and Computer Applications · doi:10.1016/j.jnca.2019.06.018 · Cited by 344 · see citing works
Self-citationBlockchain-based solutions to security and privacy issues in the internet of things
Yu, Y., Li, Y., Tian, J., & Liu, J. (2018) · IEEE Wireless Communications · doi:10.1109/mwc.2017.1800116 · Cited by 320 · see citing works
Security, Performance, and Applications of Smart Contracts: A Systematic Survey
Rouhani, S., & Deters, R. (2019) · IEEE Access · doi:10.1109/access.2019.2911031 · Cited by 309 · see citing works
Flagged first, then by citations
Cited by
Sorted by citations
A Survey of IoT Privacy Security: Architecture, Technology, Challenges, and Trends
Sun, P., Shen, S., Wan, Y., Wu, Z., Fang, Z., & Gao, X.-Z. (2024) · IEEE Internet of Things Journal · doi:10.1109/jiot.2024.3372518 · Cited by 172 · see citing works
Privacy-Preservation Techniques for IoT Devices: A Systematic Mapping Study
Torre, D., Chennamaneni, A., & Rodriguez, A. (2023) · IEEE Access · doi:10.1109/access.2023.3245524 · Cited by 35 · see citing works
Guan, Y., Wen, P., Li, J., Zhang, J., & Xie, X. (2024) · Tsinghua Science and Technology · doi:10.26599/tst.2022.9010016 · Cited by 22 · see citing works
- Authors
- Peng, K., Li, M., Huang, H., Wang, C., Wan, S., & Choo, K.-K. R.
- Affiliations
- China University of Geosciences (CN)
- Huazhong University of Science and Technology (CN)
- Zhongnan University of Economics and Law (CN)
- The University of Texas at San Antonio (US)
- Venue
- IEEE Internet of Things Journal
- Published
- 2021-08-01
- Volume
- 8
- Issue
- 15
- Pages
- 12004-12020
- ISSN
- 2327-4662 (ISSN-L)
- 2372-2541
- OpenAlex
- W3154310484
- Cited by
- 130
- References
- 10
- Citations by year
- 2026: 9 · 2025: 16 · 2024: 17 · 2023: 37 · 2022: 43 · 2021: 8
- FWCI
- 23.73
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Licence
- Locations
- IEEE Internet of Things Journal (publishedVersion)
- Funders
- National Natural Science Foundation of China (61872416, 62002104, 52031009, 62071192)
- Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities of China (2019kfyXJJS017)
- Natural Science Foundation of Hubei Province of China (2019CFB191)
- Open Research Project of Hubei Key Laboratory of Intelligent Geo-Information Processing (KLIGIP-2018A03)
- Cloud Technology Endowed Professorship
- Topics
- Physical Sciences › Computer Science › Information Systems › Blockchain Technology Applications and Security
- Physical Sciences › Computer Science › Computer Networks and Communications › IoT and Edge/Fog Computing
- Physical Sciences › Computer Science › Information Systems › Internet of Things and AI
- Keywords
- smart contracts, Internet of Things, blockchain security, smart contract attacks, IoT security challenges
About these checks
Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.
Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.
Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.
What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›
Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review