Security architecture for defining and enforcing security profiles in DLT/SDN-based IoT systems

Abstract

Despite the advantages that the Internet of Things (IoT) will bring to our daily life, the increasing interconnectivity, as well as the amount and sensitivity of data, make IoT devices an attractive target for attackers. To address this issue, the recent Manufacturer Usage Description (MUD) standard has been proposed to describe network access control policies in the manufacturing phase to protect the device during its operation by restricting its communications. In this paper, we define an architecture and process to obtain and enforce the MUD restrictions during the bootstrapping of a device. Furthermore, we extend the MUD model with a flexible policy language to express additional aspects, such as data privacy, channel protection, and resource authorization. For the enforcement of such enriched behavioral profiles, we make use of Software Defined Networking (SDN) techniques, as well as an attribute-based access control approach by using authorization credentials and encryption techniques. These techniques are used to protect devices’ data, which are shared through a blockchain platform. The resulting approach was implemented and evaluated in a real scenario, and is intended to reduce the attack surface of IoT deployments by restricting devices’ communication before they join a certain network.