The rapid growth of IoT devices has the potential to provide many benefits. It is also a cause for concern because IoT devices are tempting targets for attackers. State-of-the-art security software protects fullfeatured devices, such as laptops and phones, from most known threats, but many IoT devices, such as connected thermostats, security cameras, and lighting control systems, have minimal security or are unprotected. Because they are designed to be inexpensive and limited purpose, IoT devices may have unpatched software flaws. They also often have processing, timing, memory, and power constraints that make them challenging to secure. Users often do not know what IoT devices are on their networks and lack means for controlling access to them over their life cycles.The consequences of not addressing the security of IoT devices can be catastrophic. For instance, in typical networking environments, malicious actors can detect and attack an IoT device within minutes of it connecting to the internet. If it has a known vulnerability, this weakness can be exploited at scale, enabling an attacker to commandeer sets of compromised devices, called botnets, to launch large-scale distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks, such as Mirai, as well as other network-based attacks. DDoS attacks can significantly harm an organization, rendering it impossible for the organization's customers to reach it and thereby resulting in revenue loss, potential liability exposure, reputation damage, and eroded customer trust. CHALLENGEBecause IoT devices are designed to be low in cost, with limited functionality using constrained hardware, and for limited purposes, it is not realistic to try to solve the problem of IoT device vulnerability by requiring that all IoT devices be equipped with robust and state-of-the-art security mechanisms. Instead, we are challenged to develop ways to improve IoT device security without requiring costly or complicated improvements to the devices themselves.A second challenge lies in the need to develop security mechanisms that will be effective even though IoT devices will, by their very nature, remain vulnerable to attack, and some will inevitably be compromised. These security mechanisms should protect the rest of the network from any devices that become compromised.Given the widespread use of IoT devices by consumers who may not even be aware that the devices are accessing their network, a third challenge is the practical need for IoT security mechanisms to be easy to use. Ideally, security features should be so transparent that a user need not even be aware of their operation.To address these challenges, the National Cybersecurity Center of Excellence (NCCoE) and its collaborators have demonstrated the practicality and effectiveness of using the Internet Engineering Task Force's Manufacturer Usage Description (MUD) standard to reduce both the vulnerability of IoT devices to network-based attacks and the potential for harm from any IoT devices that become compromised.

Exhaustion of current version of Internet Protocol version 4 (IPv4) addresses initiated development of next-generation Internet Protocol version 6 (IPv6). IPv6 is acknowledged to provide more address space, better address design, and greater security; however, IPv6 and IPv4 are not fully compatible. For the two protocols to coexist, various IPv6 transition mechanisms have been developed. This research will analyze a series of IPv6 transition mechanisms over the Multiprotocol Label Switching (MPLS) backbone using a simulation tool (OPNET) and will evaluate and compare their performances. The analysis will include comparing the end-to-end delay, jitter, and throughput performance metrics using tunneling mechanisms, specifically Manual Tunnel, Generic Routing Encapsulation (GRE) Tunnel, Automatic IPv4-Compatible Tunnel, and 6to4 Tunnel between Customer Edge (CE)-to-CE routers and between Provider Edge (PE)-to-PE routers. The results are then compared against 6PE, Native IPv6, and Dual Stack, all using the MPLS backbone. The traffic generated for this comparison are database access, email, File Transfer, File Print, Telnet, Video Conferencing over IP, Voice over IP, Web Browsing, and Remote Login. A statistical analysis is performed to compare the performance metrics of these mechanisms to evaluate any statistically-significant differences among them. The main objective of this research is to rank the aforementioned IPv6 transition mechanism and identify the superior mechanism(s) that offer lowest delay, lowest jitter, and highest throughput.