Blockchain for Cybersecurity: Working Mechanism, Application areas and Security Challenges

Blockchain is receiving huge attention from researchers and various organizations as it brings forth magical solutions to the classical centralized architecture problems. Blockchain, either private or public, is a kind of distributed ledger for maintenance of integrity among various transactions by the process of ledger decentralization among the participating end users. On the contrary, Internet of Things (IoT) is the internet revolution that facilitates connection of all end user devices over the internet so that they can share their services and applications for improvement of daily living standards. Centralized IoT provides numerous benefits, however, it also brings forth several security challenges. Integrating blockchain with IoT is an effective way to resolve these security challenges. This paper presents a detailed review that highlights this integration process. The paper presents the working mechanism of the blockchain and how it changes the nature of value. Application areas and security challenges are also outlined and discussed in the paper.