Internet of Things (IoT) security reference architecture - an ANT-centric study

Abstract

This document is intended to help organizations in designing secure IoT systems. It proposes a generic IoT security reference architecture that utilizes the concept of critical activities to identify appropriate security control measures for each type of node in an IoT system. The enclosed list of security control measures contains recommendations for three levels of relative strength of the mechanisms. The levels allow security architects to accommodate different requirements of an organization based on the risks and the impact of those risks analyzed for a particular application. The document also describes the steps and elaborates the prerequisites for the successful application of the proposed reference architecture for different real-life use-cases. Finally, we demonstrate the design methodology and application of the reference architecture with use cases such as Smart Lamp Posts, Smart Metering and Smart Home. This proposed technique also provides directions on how to identify and model security risks associated with different IoT systems that can help to choose the appropriate level of security controls from the reference architecture.