Cryptographic keys generating and renewing system for iot network nodes—a concept

Abstract

Designers and users of the Internet of Things (IoT) are devoting more and more attention to the issues of security and privacy as well as the integration of data coming from various areas. A critical element of cooperation is building mutual trust and secure data exchange. Because IoT devices usually have small memory resources, limited computing power, and limited energy resources, it is often impossible to effectively use a well-known solution based on the Certification Authority. This article describes the concept of the system for a cryptographic Key Generating and Renewing system (KGR). The concept of the solution is based on the use of the hardware Trusted Platform Module (TPM) v2.0 to support the procedures of creating trust structures, generating keys, protecting stored data, and securing data exchange between system nodes. The main tasks of the system are the secure distribution of a new symmetric key and renewal of an expired key for data exchange parties. The KGR system is especially designed for clusters of the IoT nodes but can also be used by other systems. A service based on the Message Queuing Telemetry Transport (MQTT) protocol will be used to exchange data between nodes of the KGR system.