A model of decentralized identity management of IoT devicas in critical infrastructures based on cloud services and blockhain registry

Abstract

The paper addresses the problem of decentralized identity management for IoT devices operating within critical infrastructures based on cloud services, edge computing, and blockchain registries. The relevance of the study is driven by the rapid growth of heterogeneous devices in Industrial Internet of Things environments, the need for reliable device identification, data integrity assurance, and reduced dependence on centralized authentication services. It is shown that traditional identity management approaches are limited by the risk of a single point of failure, scalability constraints, increased latency, and insufficient adaptability to dynamic IoT network topologies.
A decentralized identity management model for IoT devices is proposed, in which the functions of identity generation, preliminary verification, record storage, and policy management are distributed across IoT devices, edge nodes, cloud services, and a blockchain registry. The paper presents the structure of identity records, a transaction model for updating identity states, and an operational algorithm covering key scenarios, including device onboarding, identity verification, parameter updates, and revocation in case of compromise. A key feature of the proposed approach is the offloading of computationally intensive operations to the edge layer and dedicated blockchain nodes, which significantly reduces the resource burden on constrained IoT devices.
The proposed model ensures improved scalability, enhanced fault tolerance, and higher trust in identity data compared to centralized solutions, while avoiding excessive overhead typical of fully decentralized blockchain systems. The practical value of the approach lies in its applicability to energy, transportation, and industrial infrastructures, where reliable identity management, data consistency, and system resilience are critical requirements.

Keywords: IoT devices, critical infrastructure, decentralized identity, cloud services, blockchain registry, edge computing.