IoTsafe, Decoupling Security From Applications for a Safer IoT

Abstract

The use of robust security solutions is a must for the Internet of Things (IoT) devices and their applications: regulators in different countries are creating frameworks for certifying those devices with an acceptable security level. However, even for already certified devices, security protocols have to be updated when a breach is found or a certain version becomes obsolete. Many approaches for securing IoT applications are nowadays based on the integration of a security layer [e.g., using transport layer security, (TLS)], but this may result in difficulties when upgrading the security algorithms, as the whole application has to be updated. This fact may shorten the life of IoT devices. As a way to overcome these difficulties, this paper presents IoTsafe, a novel approach relying on secure socket shell (SSH), a feasible alternative to secure communications in IoT applications based on hypertext transfer protocol (HTTP and HTTP/2). In order to illustrate its advantages, a comparison between the traditional approach (HTTP with TLS) and our scheme (HTTP with SSH) is performed over low-power wireless personal area networks (6loWPAN) through 802.15.4 interfaces. The results show that the proposed approach not only provides a more robust and easy-to-update solution, but it also brings an improvement to the overall performance in terms of goodput and energy consumption. Core server stress tests are also presented, and the server performance is also analyzed in terms of RAM consumption and escalation strategies.

CMXsafe: A Proxy Layer for Securing Internet-of-Things Communications

“…The results obtained in the test series are aligned with the results of other works that have evaluated the performance of SSH embodiments as proxies in real IoT devices (raspberries). Those tests considered real 802.15.4 interfaces and different types of traffic (HTTP, HTTP/2 CoAP) [17] [60]. The computation requirements and overall performance improved in proxied communications.…”

“…Optimized SSH embodiments such as WolfSSH for constrained IoT devices can reduce ROM footprint to 35kb of ROM [53]. RAM consumption also depends heavily on the SSH embodiments, ranging between 2 and 7 MB for standard client versions (compiled with all default features) [17]. Nevertheless, optimized SSH clients only require between 1.4 KB and 2 KB of RAM plus the configurable receive buffer [53].…”

“…Second, we set out to minimize the risk of infected devices' lateral movement by providing secure communication paths. Finally, we strive to simplify the security protocols' patching process by leveraging the decoupling security concept in communication protocols [17].…”

A Review on Privacy Requirements and Application Layer Security in Internet of Things (IoT)

“…MQTT protocol is termed as the transportation of MQ Telemetry. This MQTT is designed and developed as the lightweight and straight forward messaging protocol for subscribing and publishing messages shared with high latency, low bandwidth, restricted devices and unreliable networks [49]. The design principles of MQTT mainly targets on minimizing the processing, the requirements of device resources, and network bandwidth, that tries to guarantee delivery and attain reliability.…”