ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Blockchain
Sec. Blockchain in Industry
This article is part of the Research TopicIndustrial Transformation through Blockchain: From Smart Manufacturing to Secure HealthcareView all 6 articles
Blockchain-based Access Management Framework for Interoperable Digital Twins in Industrial IoT
Provisionally accepted
- Prince Sultan University, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia
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Digital Twins (DT) have appeared as a significant tool in Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) environments, allowing real-time monitoring, predictive maintenance, and maximizing device performance. However, integrating DTs with IIoT initiates serious security issues, specifically in the device's authentication and authorization. The state-of-the-art mechanisms are exposed to insider threats, single points of failure, and privacy issues. This study proposes a blockchain-based access control framework for cross-domain DTs. The blockchain (BC) integration eliminates reliance on the centralized authentication server. It uses platform verification from the manufacturer to validate IIoT device integrity and mitigate insider threats. Moreover, the authorization mechanism is implemented using a smart contract and access control policies stored in the BC. The proposed Non-Fungible Tokens enable role and permission delegation. The integration of Hyperledger Fabric BC, platform hash verification, and NFT-based authorization in the proposed architecture enhanced its resilience against cyber-attacks i.e., replay, DoS/DDoS, insider, and spoofing attacks. Moreover, the proposed framework validates its viability with response times (approximately 300ms) for the authentication and authorization phases. Additionally, identity resolution attains 67% depletion in latency compared to its counterpart.
Keywords: authentication, Authorization, Blockchain, Digital Twins, Industrial IoT
Received: 27 Aug 2025; Accepted: 05 Nov 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Ali, Shah, ELAffendi and Ahmad. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Gauhar Ali, gali@psu.edu.sa
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