Due to the proliferation of ICT during the last few decades, there is an exponential increase in the usage of various smart applications such as smart farming, smart healthcare, supply-chain & logistics, business, tourism and hospitality, energy management etc. However, for all the aforementioned applications, security and privacy are major concerns keeping in view of the usage of the open channel, i.e., Internet for data transfer. Although many security solutions and standards have been proposed over the years to enhance the security levels of aforementioned smart applications, but the existing solutions are either based upon the centralized architecture (having single point of failure) or having high computation and communication costs. Moreover, most of the existing security solutions have focussed only on few aspects and fail to address scalability, robustness, data storage, network latency, auditability, immutability, and traceability. To handle the aforementioned issues, blockchain technology can be one of the solutions. Motivated from these facts, in this paper, we present a systematic review of various blockchain-based solutions and their applicability in various Industry 4.0-based applications. Our contributions in this paper are in four fold. Firstly, we explored the current state-of-the-art solutions in the blockchain technology for the smart applications. Then, we illustrated the reference architecture used for the blockchain applicability in various Industry 4.0 applications. Then, merits and demerits of the traditional security solutions are also discussed in comparison to their countermeasures. Finally, we provided a comparison of existing blockchain-based security solutions using various parameters to provide deep insights to the readers about its applicability in various applications.

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Modern industry 4.0 applications are shifting towards decentralized automation of computing and cyber-physical systems (CPS), which necessitates building a robust, secure, and efficient system that performs complex interactions with other physical processes. To handle complex interactions in CPS, trust and consensus among various stakeholders is a prime concern. In a similar direction, consensus algorithms in blockchain have evolved over the years that focus on building smart, robust, and secure CPS. Thus, it is imperative to understand the key components, functional characteristics, and architecture of different consensus algorithms used in CPS. Many consensus algorithms exist in the literature with a specified set of functionalities, performance, and computing services. Motivated from these facts, in this survey, we present a comprehensive analysis of existing state-of-the-art consensus mechanisms and highlight their strength and weaknesses in decentralized CPS applications. In the first part, we present the scope of the proposed survey and identify gaps in the existing surveys. Secondly, we present the review method and objectives of the proposed survey based on research questions that address the gaps in existing studies. Then, we present a solution taxonomy of decentralized consensus mechanisms for various CPS applications. Then, open issues and challenges are also discussed in deploying various consensus mechanisms in the CPS with their merits and demerits. The proposed survey will act as a road-map for blockchain developers and researchers to evaluate and design future consensus mechanisms, which helps to build an efficient CPS for industry 4.0 stakeholders.

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Internet of Things (IoT) connects different objects in the physical world to the Internet, and various Internet protocols are used to provide communication services to a large number of these embedded devices termed as smart devices. But, these devices are resource-constrained, low configured, and have very low power storage capacity, which depends on the services offered by the protocols. For the exchange of information to the end-users, smart devices communicate through an open channel, such as the Internet, which is not secure enough. Moreover, efficient delivery ratio, secure data forwarding are not achieved because of the enormous amount of data produced by these smart devices and the possibility of security threats. So there is a need to devise a secure and reliable data dissemination scheme for the IoT environment. Motivated from the these facts, this paper presents a systematic review and propose a solution taxonomy for secure data dissemination techniques for various smart IoT-based applications. This paper also includes a comparison of the state-of-the-art data dissemination techniques used for the Internet of Vehicles (IoVs), Internet of Drones (IoDs), and Internet of Battlefield Things (IoBTs) applications along with their merits and demerits.Finally, the research challenges and possible countermeasures are also discussed in detail, which gives insights to the beginners who want to start work in this emerging area.

In modern cities, smart irrigation systems are designed to operate via Internet of things (IoT) based sensor units having precise measurements of irrigation requirements such as amount of water, crop temperature, and humidity to build a robust supply chain ecosystem. The usage of sensors and networking units enable the optimal usage of irrigation resources, and is termed as precision irrigation (PI). Thus, PI leverage an efficient solution to handle the scarcity of essential resources such as food, water, land units, and crop yields. Thus, farmers gets better returns in the market due to high production. However, in PI, the exchange of crop readings from sensor units to actuators are processed through open channels, that is, Internet. Thus, it open the doors for malicious intruders to deploy network and sensor-based attacks on PI-sensors, to drain the available resources, and battery power of sensor nodes in the network. This reduces the optimum and precise utilization of irrigation resources, low-yield crops and damaged crops in supply chain systems. This leads to dissatisfaction among agriculture stakeholders such as quality control units, logistics, suppliers, and customers. Motivated from the above discussions, the survey presents the advantages of integrating blockchain (BC) with PI to handle issues pertaining to security, trust, and transactional payments among agriculture stakeholders. The survey is directed to achieve threefold objective-attack models and countermeasures in PI systems, integration of BC in PI to mitigate attack models, and research challenges in deploying BC in PI. To address the first objective, the survey proposes an in-depth comparative analysis of traditional irrigation systems with PI, with discussions on attack models. To address the second objective, the survey proposes an integration model of BC with PI to secure IoT sensors, and maintain trust and transparency among stakeholders. Finally, the survey addresses the open research challenges of deploying BC in PI-based irrigation systems, and presents a case-study of AgriChain as an industry ready-solution that envisions BC with PI ecosystem. Thus, the proposed survey acts as a roadmap for agriculture industry stakeholders, researchers, to deploy BC in IoT-based PI that leverages an efficient, robust, trust-worthy, and secure ecosystem.

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