Blockchain Enabled Optimal Lightweight Cryptography Based Image Encryption Technique for IIoT

Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) and Industry 4.0/5.0 offer several interconnections between machinery, equipment, processes, and personnel in diverse application areas namely logistics, supply chain, manufacturing, transportation, and healthcare. The conventional security-based solutions in IIoT environment get degraded due to the third parties. Therefore, the recent blockchain technology (BCT) can be employed to resolve trust issues and eliminate the need for third parties. Therefore, this paper presents a novel blockchain enabled secure optimal lightweight cryptography based image encryption (BC-LWCIE) technique for industry 4.0 environment. In addition, the BC-LWCIE technique involves the design of an optimal LWC based hash function with optimal key generation using chicken swarm optimization (CSO) algorithm. Moreover, the CSO algorithm derives a fitness function with the maximization of peak signal to noise ratio (PSNR). The BC-LWCIE technique stores the cryptographic pixel values of the encrypted image in the BCT to ensure secrecy in the IIoT environment. In order to highlight the enhanced security performance of the BC-LWCIE technique, a series of simulations were carried out and the results demonstrated the betterment of the BC-LWCIE technique over the recent techniques.