Secure Cross-Domain Authentication and Data Sharing Scheme for IIoT in Cloud-Fog Automation Architecture

Cloud-fog automation architecture has propelled the advancement of the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT), significantly enhancing production efficiency and intelligence through extensive data collection and connectivity. Simultaneously, industrial cyber-physical system leverages this data to achieve intelligent control and optimization of production processes. As industrial production becomes increasingly specialized and complex, independent operations within a single domain are no longer sufficient to meet demands, making cross-domain collaborative production inevitable. Consequently, ensuring the security of cross-domain communication and data sharing has become a critical issue for IIoT under the cloud-fog automation architecture. Existing solutions encounter substantial management and computational burdens in cross-domain communication and data sharing, and they are vulnerable to privacy leakage risks. To address these challenges and enhance industrial production efficiency, this paper uses consortium blockchain to co-design a cross-domain authentication and data sharing scheme. The scheme ensures secure and private cross-domain communications with minimal computational, communication, and storage overhead. And, the proposed time-specific plaintext checkable encryption protocol can secure data during cross-domain sharing. Security and performance analyses show that the proposed scheme effectively reduces computational and communication resource demands while maintaining communication and data security.