A security architecture for the internet of things

Abstract

This paper demonstrates a case for an end-to-end pure Application Security Layer for reliable and confidential communications within an Internet of Things (IoT) constrained environment. To provide a secure key exchange and to setup a secure data connection, Transport Layer Security (TLS) is used, which provides native protection against replay attacks. TLS along with digital signature can be used to achieve non-repudiation within app-to-app communications. This paper studies the use of TLS over the JavaScript Object Notation (JSON) via a The Constrained Application Protocol (CoAP) RESTful service to verify the hypothesis that in this way one can provide end-to-end communication flexibility and potentially retain identity information for repudiation. As a proof of concept, a prototype has been developed to simulate an IoT software client with the capability of hosting a CoAP RESTful service. The prototype studies data requests via a network client establishing a TLS over JSON session using a hosted CoAP RESTful service. To prove reputability and integrity of TLS JSON messages, JSON messages was intercepted and verified against simulated MITM attacks. The experimental results confirm that TLS over JSON works as hypothesised.