A Secure and Scalable IoT Framework Integrating Blockchain, Edge Intelligence, and Lightweight Authentication Protocols

This paper proposes a layered Internet of Things (IoT) security architecture combining resource-aware authenticated encryption, edge-based anomaly detection, and a permissioned blockchain audit layer. The design separates time-critical device authentication from slower ledger finality, aggregates event commitments rather than raw telemetry, and supports policy-driven quarantine of suspicious nodes. A formal cost model captures latency, communication, energy, detection quality, and ledger throughput. A transparent illustrative numerical scenario is supplied to demonstrate evaluation procedures; these values are synthetic and do not constitute measured experimental findings. The framework offers a reproducible research blueprint for assessing security–performance trade-offs across heterogeneous IoT deployments.