Blockchain-enabled IoT security: a multi-layered framework for smart contract vulnerability detection and optimization

Abstract

The exponential expansion of Internet of Things (IoT) applications has raised critical issues about data security, integrity, and scalability, especially in IoT systems based on a centralized architecture. The decentralized and immutable nature of blockchain technology provides a compelling alternative; but smart contract (SC) security and efficiency is still a critical issue. This research presents a layered, pipeline-based approach for secure and efficient deployment of SCs, with IoT and decentralized storage. The framework integrates real-time IoT data collection, secure data pre-processing, SCs development, SCs vulnerability detection and gas optimization into a single system. To overcome storage constraints, the approach uses InterPlanetary File System (IPFS) for off-chain data storage, with on-chain hashes ensuring data integrity. The framework uses a multi-tool analysis to identify SC vulnerabilities and deploy and test them on the Sepolia Testnet. In addition to this, the framework adopts statistical validation methods such as Paired t-test (P–t Test), Kruskal–Wallis test(K-W Test) and Wilcoxon signed-rank test (WS-R Test) to assess the performance improvement and validate the effectiveness of the optimization approaches. Simulation-based testing results reveal that the proposed framework leads to lower gas usage, faster execution, and better security compared to conventional methods. The findings show that the proposed framework offers a scalable, secure, and efficient approach to design real-time IoT-based SC systems, which can be applied to environmental monitoring and smart city systems.