IEEE INTERNET OF THINGS JOURNAL, VOL. 5, NO.

4, AUGUST 2018 2483

Evaluating Critical Security Issues of the IoT World:

Present and Future Challenges
Mario Frustaci, Pasquale Pace , Member, IEEE, Gianluca Aloi, Member, IEEE,
and Giancarlo Fortino, Senior Member, IEEE

Abstract—Social Internet of Things (SIoT) is a new paradigm (which support major Internet platforms and services such as
where Internet of Things (IoT) merges with social networks, allowing PayPal, Twitter, VISA, etc.) through a botnet consisting of a
people and devices to interact, and facilitating infor-mation sharing.
large number of vulnerable IoT devices (such as printers, IP
However, security and privacy issues are a great challenge for IoT
but they are also enabling factors to create a “trust ecosystem.” In cameras, residential gateways, and baby monitors) that had
fact, the intrinsic vulnerabilities of IoT devices, with limited been infected by the Mirai malware. With an estimated load of
resources and heterogeneous technologies, together with the lack of 1.2 terabits per second, the attack is, according to experts, the
specifically designed IoT standards, represent a fertile ground for largest DDoS on record [5]. In addition, in the same period,
the expansion of specific cyber threats. In this paper, we try to bring researchers uncovered a flaw in the radio protocol ZigBee [6]
order on the IoT security panorama providing a taxonomic analysis
from the perspective of the three main key layers of the IoT system that has been shown and demonstrated by using an aerial
model: 1) perception; drone to target a set of smart Philips light bulbs in an office
2) transportation; and 3) application levels. As a result of the tower, infecting the bulbs with a virus that let the attackers to
analysis, we will highlight the most critical issues with the aim of turn the lights on and off flashing an “SOS” message in Morse
guiding future research directions. code; moreover, this malware was also able to spread like a
Index Terms—Cyber threats, Internet of Things (IoT), IoT pathogen among the devices neighbors.
protocols, IoT security, IoT system model, trust. Finally, another matter of concern for IoT, is the privacy in
the protection of the personal data collected by such IoT
systems since it is necessary to provide full awareness and
control of the automatic data flow to the generic end user.
I. INTRODUCTION Starting from this worrying and challenging context, this
N THE next future, the Internet of Things (IoT) paradigm paper discusses the current status and how to design IoT secu-
rity. In Section II, we discuss about a generic model for IoT
I will involve billion of smart-devices with processing, sens-ing
Systems with specific reference to threats. In Section III, we
define the concept of trust and its importance in IoT to create
and actuating capabilities able to be connected to the Internet [1], social relationships between unknown entities. In Section IV,
[2]. Integrating social networking concepts into the IoT has led to
we define how security must be correctly designed to sup-port
the Social IoT (SIoT) concept which enables people and
connected devices to interact, facilitating infor-mation sharing the IoT paradigm by exhibiting some generic policies and
[3]. However, interoperability [4], security, and privacy issues are strategies which should be redesigned to address spe-cific
a great challenge for IoT but they are also enabling factors to characteristics of IoT world (i.e., limited resources and
create a “trust and interopera-ble ecosystem.” In fact, not solving technological heterogeneity). A key step to include security in
these issues, the SIoT paradigm will not reach enough popularity IoT Systems is also related to the secure communication
and all its potential can be lost. protocols used in a way that data in transit are confiden-tial,
Security issue is emphasized by the lack of standards reliable, and available by preventing cyber attacks. In fact, in
specifically designed for devices with limited resources and Section V we analyze some widely used IoT pro-tocols
heterogeneous technologies. In addition, these devices, due to dealing with security issues and describing innovative
many vulnerabilities, represent a “fertile ground” for existing solutions presented in the scientific literature. Finally, in
cyber threats. In fact, at the end of 2016, there were distributed Section VI we discuss where it should be directed the
denial of service (DDoS) attacks to the DNS provider Dyn scientific research in the near future to solve the most serious
security IoT issues.
Manuscript received July 15, 2017; revised September 27, 2017; accepted
October 17, 2017. Date of publication October 27, 2017; date of current version
August 9, 2018. This work was supported by the European Union under the
framework of INTER-IoT Research and Innovation action - Horizon 2020 II. THREATS IN IOT SYSTEM MODEL
European Project, Grant Agreement 687283. (Corresponding author:
Pasquale Pace.) A generic IoT system can be fully represented and described
The authors are with the Department of Informatics, Modeling, Electronics by using three main key layers: 1) perception; 2) trans-portation;
and System Engineering, University of Calabria, 87036 Rende, Italy and 3) application. Each of these system levels summarized in
(e-mail: [email protected]; [email protected];
[email protected]; [email protected]). Fig. 1 has its own specific technologies that bring issues and
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/JIOT.2017.2767291 some possible security weaknesses. In fact,
2327-4662 c 2017 IEEE. Personal use is permitted, but republication/redistribution requires IEEE permission.
See http://www.ieee.org/publications_standards/publications/rights/index.html for more information.
2484 IEEE INTERNET OF THINGS JOURNAL, VOL. 5, NO. 4, AUGUST 2018

B. Transportation Layer
Transportation layer mainly provides ubiquitous access
environment for the perception layer. The purpose of this
layer is to transmit the gathered information, received from
the per-ception layer, to any particular information processing
system through existing communication networks used by
both access networks (3G, WiFi, ad hoc network, etc.) or core
networks (Internet).
In [9], there is a brief overview of security issues in
wireless networks such as cellular networks. According to this
paper, the open and heterogeneous architecture of an IP-based
LTE network, is resulting in increasing number of security
threats compared to the 3G networks.
Generally, at this level, the main security threats are as
Fig. 1. IoT system model.
follows.
1) Routing Attacks: Intermediate malicious nodes (e.g., in
in [7] the security problems of each layer are analyzed a WSN) might modify the right routing paths during the
separately by looking for new robust and feasible solutions. data collection and forwarding process.
2) DoS Attacks: Because of the heterogeneity and
complex-ity of IoT network, the transportation layer is
A. Perception Layer
vulnerable to get attacked.
The first layer is related to the physical IoT sensors to 3) Data Transit Attacks: Various attacks on the confiden-
support data collection and processing on different common tiality and integrity during data transit in access or core
technologies such as radio-frequency identification (RFID), networks.
wireless sensor network (WSN), RFID sensor network (RSN),
and GPS. This layer includes sensors and actuators to perform
different measurements (i.e., temperature, acceleration, C. Application Layer
humid-ity, etc.) and functionalities such as querying location The application layer provides the services requested by
[8]. Due to the limited node resources and distributed customers. For instance, the application layer can provide
organized struc-ture, the main security threats coming from temperature and air humidity measurements to the customers
the perception layer are as follows. asking for such data. The importance of this layer for the IoT
1) Physical Attacks: These kinds of attacks are focused on is that it has the ability to provide high-quality smart services
the hardware components of the IoT system and the to meet customers’ needs. Many different IoT envi-ronments
attacker needs to be physically close or into the IoT (i.e., smart city, smart healthcare, and smart factory) can be
system in order to make the attacks working. Some implemented within this level; moreover, an applica-tion
examples of these attacks are as follows. support sublayer, to support all sorts of business services and
a) Node Tampering: The attacker can cause damage to realize intelligent computation and resources alloca-tion,
to a sensor node, by physically replacing the entire could be implemented throughout specific middleware and
node or part of its hardware or even electronically cloud computing platforms.
interrogating the nodes to gain access and alter The main security threats within this layer are as follows.
sensitive information, such as shared 1) Data Leakage: The attacker can easily steal data (also
cryptographic keys or routing tables. data user, e.g., user password) by knowing vulnerabili-
b) Malicious Code Injection: The attacker compro- ties of the service or application.
mises a node by physically injecting it with mali- 2) DoS Attack: Attackers can destroy the availability of the
cious code that would give him access to the IoT application or service itself.
system. 3) Malicious Code Injection: Attackers can upload mali-
2) Impersonation: Authentication in the distributed envi- cious codes in software applications exploiting the
ronment is very difficult, allowing malicious nodes to known vulnerabilities.
use a fake identity for malicious or collusion attacks
3) Denial of Service (DoS) Attacks: Attackers exploit the
finite processing ability of the nodes, making them III. TRUST IN THE IOT WORLD
unavailable. Trust management has been proven to be a useful tech-
4) Routing Attacks: Intermediate malicious nodes (e.g., in nology for providing security service and, as a consequence,
a WSN) might modify the right routing paths during the has been used in many applications such as collaborative
data collection and forwarding process. Web-based platforms [10], social media [11], semantic Web
5) Data Transit Attacks: Various attacks on the confiden- [12], or online shopping [13].
tiality and integrity during data transit [e.g., sniffing and For the IoT world, the development of trust mechanisms is
man-in-the-middle (MITM)]. fundamental to help people to overcome perceptions of
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TABLE I
THREATS IN IOT SYSTEM MODEL about others) and b) opportunism (transacting partners
have different goals).
2) Excellent Flexibility: Trust mechanisms can deal with
changeable security condition and personalized security
request. Users or nodes can define personalized policies
to evaluate whether an object is trusted or not. Every
participant can define one or multiple policies to
perform decision-making according to their request.
3) Better Efficiency: Trust management systems must be
lightweight enough to provide a good performance
taking into account energy constrains of several sen-sor
nodes. For example, for the routing process, sen-sor
nodes might need to know which other nodes to trust
when forwarding a packet, so as to choose whether to
send the information either through the fastest link or
through the nodes that have spent less energy.
uncertainty and risk in using IoT services and applica-tions Furthermore, the bandwidth can be evaluated by trust
[14], [15], [19]. Especially, in SIoT, trust plays a key role in value so as to select routing properly to balance the
establishing trustworthy social relationships between load.
unknown entities. In fact, in this context, IoT devices mimic 4) Uniforming Decision-Making for Heterogeneous IoT:
autonomously the social behavior of their human counter- Trust can be supported across multiple IoT domains
parts according to the owners’ social networks and build up based on trust chain technology.
social relationships with other trust devices in order to provide 5) Compatibility Between Trust and Security: In fact, a
services to the humans. trust management system can assist and/or take
advantage of other security protocols and mechanisms
A. Trust Properties [e.g., key man-agement, intrusion detection system
(IDS), and privacy]. For example, regarding the key
Trust is a very complicated concept that is influenced by many management systems, a node can use the trust
measurable and nonmeasurable properties. It is strictly related to measurements to revoke the keys of an untrusted entity.
security since ensuring system security and user safety is a In this regard, the work in [18] proposes an adaptive
necessity to gain trust. However, trust is more than security. trust management proto-col for SIoT systems to enhance
Another important concept related to trust is privacy that is the the security against malicious attacks.
ability of an entity to determine whether, when, and to whom
information about itself is to be released or disclosed.
The properties influencing a trust decision can be classified C. Trust Management Goals
into five categories [16].
To provide trustworthy IoT system, trust management in
1) Trustee’s objective properties, such as a trustee’s secu- IoT should achieve the following objectives grouped in
rity, dependability (reliability, maintainability, usability, different categories [16].
and safety) and privacy preservation. 1) Layer Goals:
2) Trustee’s subjective properties, such as trustee honesty, a) Data Perception Trust: Data sensing and collection
benevolence and goodness. should be reliable in IoT (perception layer goal).
3) Trustor’s subjective properties, such as trustor disposi- b) Data Communication Trust: Data should be
tion and willingness to trust. securely transmitted in the IoT systems
4) Trustor’s objective properties, such as the criteria or (perception and transportation layer goal).
policies specified by the trustor for a trust decision. c) Data Fusion and Mining Trust: Data collected in IoT
5) Context: The situation or environment (time, place, and should be processed and analyzed in a trustworthy
involved entities) in which the entities operate. Trust is way, e.g., with regard to privacy preser-vation and
different depending on the context: the trust accuracy (application layer goal).
relationships of a IoT device in a controlled d) Quality of IoT Services: This objective should be
environment are different from those a public space ensured through “only here, only me and only
where there are unknown and untrusted entities. now” services (application layer goal).
e) Human–Computer Trust Interaction: To support
B. Importance of Trust user usability using IoT services (application layer
The main advantages of introducing trust mechanism into goal).
IoT are as follows [17]. 2) Cross-Layer Goals:
1) Certainty in Collaboration: Uncertainty is originated a) Generality: Trust management for various IoT
basically from two sources: a) information asymmetry systems and services should be generic in order to
(a partner does not have all the information it needs be widely applied.
2486 IEEE INTERNET OF THINGS JOURNAL, VOL. 5, NO. 4, AUGUST 2018

b) Trust Relationship and Decision: It is necessary a

Trust relationship evaluation for all IoT entities in
order to make the best decision for intelligent and
autonomic trust management.
c) System Security and Robustness: System security
and dependability are fundamentals to gain user
confidence.
d) Privacy Preservation: User privacy must be
preserved according to user policy.
e) Identity Trust: Entities identities should be well
managed in a trustworthy way considering the
objective properties of IoT system (e.g., identity
Fig. 2. CIA security model.
privacy) and subjective properties of IoT entities
(e.g., user belief) and context that may influence
attacks on the services like DoS attack can deny data avail-
identity management policies.
ability. The most famous mechanisms to protect availability
Only addressing these goals, it is possible to achieve a are: firewall, IDS, and redundancy methods.
comprehensive and holistic trust management for IoT.

B. Traditional IT Security Versus IoT Security

IV. IOT SECURITY
A fundamental issue in IoT world is that most of the IoT
Security in IoT devices is often neglected or treated as an
devices are “closed,” thus, customers cannot add security soft-
afterthought from the IoT manufacturers. This is mostly due
ware once the devices have been shipped from the factory. For
to the short time to market and costs reduction driv-ing the
such reasons, security has to be built into IoT devices so that
device’s design and development process. The few devices
they are “secure by design” (“built-in security”). In other
that support some protection usually employ software level
words, for IoT devices, the security concept must evolve from
solutions, such as firmware signing. However, focusing the
“add-on security” in which security is just added on the
attention on the software-based protection schemes often
existing systems such as servers or PCs (traditional IT).
leaves the hardware unintentionally vulnerable (e.g., debug
Another important issue is related to the fact that, in
interfaces open), allowing for new attacks; as a reference
general, an IoT system is composed by nodes with limited
example, the work in [20] clearly demonstrated that a non-
hardware and software resources (i.e., sensor or RFID nodes),
secure hardware platform will inevitably lead to a nonsecure
while traditional IT is mostly based on resources rich devices.
software stack.
So, in the IoT world, only lightweight algorithms can be used,
In this section, we discuss about the design of security in most of the cases, to find a right balance between higher
techniques for IoT systems and devices also highlighting the
security and lower capabilities.
differences with traditional IT security. In addition, we pro-
In addition, the broad heterogeneity that characterizes the IoT
vide useful policies to secure IoT systems from some standard
devices is a common feature, easily observable in every
threats summarized in Table I.
functional element (identification, sensing, communication,
computation, service, and semantic) [21]. In fact, in the future
A. Security Goals: CIA Security Model there will be many kinds of things potentially connecting to the
The security triad, a distinguished model for the devel- Internet, ranging from cars, robots, fridges, mobile phones, to
opment of security mechanisms, implements the security by shoes, plants, watches, and so on. These kinds of things, with
making use of three main areas which are: data confiden- different technologies, will generate also large volumes of
tiality, integrity, and availability (CIA security model, shown heterogeneous data poorly manageable [22]–[24]. However, the
in Fig. 2). negative aspect of security is related to the increase of the attack
Data confidentiality is the ability to provide confidence to surface: many heterogeneous technologies, coupled with their
user about the privacy of the sensitive information by using related issues, can bring also security weaknesses.
different mechanisms so that its disclosure to the unau- Moreover, in IoT system model, the perception layer is the
thorized party is prevented and can be accessed by the most complicated to be protected because: 1) technological
authorized users only. Data confidentiality is usually sup- heterogeneity determines difficulty of using only one kind of
ported through different mechanisms such as data encryption security technology and 2) the perceptual environment is often
or access control. open, and thus, security strategies, previously used in closed
Data integrity refers to the protection of useful information environments, can cause problems in the open environment.
from the cybercriminals or the external interference during On the other side, considering the application layer, privacy
data transit or rest through some common methods like data issues are more challenging because IoT applications are used
integrity algorithms preventing data alteration. in our everyday life and they gather our private information
Data availability ensures the immediate access of autho- every second automatically to make our life easier. In fact,
rized party to their information resources not only in the these IoT applications can even control our everyday life envi-
normal conditions but also in disastrous conditions. The ronment and this can bring great potential security problems if
FRUSTACI et al.: EVALUATING CRITICAL SECURITY ISSUES OF IoT WORLD: PRESENT AND FUTURE CHALLENGES 2487

TABLE II
TRADITIONAL IT SECURITY VERSUS IOT SECURITY successfully deployed. In this context, it is extremely
useful to ensure the credibility in the relationships
among IoT devices or between those devices and the
users.
However, the security requirements for IoT cannot be
achieved by simply putting specific solutions from each layers
together. In fact, it is necessary to consider IoT system as a
whole system and security can be thought of as a chain that is
robust as much as its weakest link.
Therefore, to improve IoT security, we also need to have some
cooperation between different layers by designing secu-rity
solutions for cross layers usage overcoming heterogeneous
integration issues. In this sense, interoperability [25]–[27] can
become one of the enabling factors for IoT security.

we lose control of them. Moreover, due to the lack of specific V. ISSUES AND SECURITY SOLUTIONS FOR IOT
security software (e.g., antivirus and IDS), the IoT world is COMMUNICATION PROTOCOLS
surely less secure than traditional IT. A key step to include security in IoT Systems is also related
In summary, IoT systems are deployed in more danger-ous to the secure communication protocols used in a way that data
and heterogeneous environments with limited resources and in transit are confidential, reliable and available by preventing
also with less security guards. So we need to imple-ment cyber attacks.
lightweight solutions to deal with such more dangerous By looking the context from the protocol point of view,
environments with a large attack surface. Table II resumes the IoT protocols can be divided into three main levels [28]:
main differences between traditional IT and IoT security 1) physical access; 2) network; and 3) service and applica-
requirements and application contexts. tion. In this section, we revise the most used communication
protocols also describing issues and some innovative solutions
C. Multilayer and Cross Layer Security for IoT System proposed in the scientific literature. Table III summarizes all
the considered IoT protocols and the related issues also high-
According to the presented IoT system model, security must be
lighting the possible standard and novel solutions in each of
developed at different layers. Here we describe the appro-priate
the different levels.
security policies and strategies which provide a certain reference
value for the practical application to IoT scenarios.
Security policies within each layer must consider the fol- A. Physical Access Level
lowing basic mechanisms. This level is composed by physical and MAC layer pro-tocols
1) Hardware Security: Using cryptographic coprocessor or of the well known ISO/OSI architecture. In the IoT arena, the
anti-tampering technologies (e.g., chip or memory most used radio technologies to communicate are wireless such
protection, self-destruction, etc.). as IEEE 802.15.4, BLE, IEEE 802.11/WiFi, and LTE. While in
2) Access Control and Authentication System: To prevent wired networks, the communicating nodes are physically
the access to IoT sensor nodes or application from connected through cables, in wireless networks they are
unauthorized users. extremely vulnerable due to the broadcast nature of the wireless
3) Data Encryption Mechanisms: Guaranteed by medium. Explicitly, wireless networks are prone to malicious
symmetric and asymmetric encryption algorithms that attacks, including eavesdropping attack, DoS attack, spoofing
should be used during data transit and storage. attack, MITM attack, message falsification/injection attack, etc.
4) Secure Routing: To ensure the correct route discovery Cryptographic techniques assume that the eaves-dropper has
also building and maintaining target even when network limited computing power and rely upon the computational
threats and attacks happen. hardness of their underlying mathematical prob-lems. Recently,
5) Risk Assessment: To discover the new system threats physical-layer security is emerging as a promising means of
preventing the security breaches and determining the protecting wireless communications to achieve information-
best security strategies. theoretic security against eavesdropping attacks. The physical
6) Intrusion Detection System: To detect local and network layer encryption exploits the features of the physical wireless
intrusion (e.g., in WSN). It is also useful to have DDoS channel for its security by communica-tions, signal processing,
attack detection and prevention mechanisms. and coding techniques [29].
7) Anti-Malware Solution: To detect and prevent malicious In the following, the most common communication proto-
code update in the device firmware (e.g., sensor node) cols used by IoT devices, are presented according to the radio
or in service or application itself. coverage range.
8) Firewall: To block unauthorized hosts. 1) IEEE 802.15.4: This communication standard defines
9) Trust Management System: To ensure that the security the operation of low-rate wireless personal area networks. It is
goals are enforced and the security mechanisms are at the basis of the ZigBee technology. The 802.15.4 security
2488 IEEE INTERNET OF THINGS JOURNAL, VOL. 5, NO. 4, AUGUST 2018

TABLE III
IOT PROTOCOLS: ISSUES AND SOLUTIONS

layer is handled at the media access control layer, below the its previous versions. Bluetooth low-energy (BLE) version 4.2
application control. The specification does not support security is more secure compared with earlier versions. In fact, it is
for acknowledgment packets; other packet types can option-ally able to create the so called LE secure connections using
support integrity protection and confidentiality protection for elliptic curve Diffie–Hellman public key cryptography which
packets data field. The 802.15.4 specification defines dif-ferent offers significantly stronger security compared to the original
security suites that can be classified according to the following BLE key exchange protocol [36], [37]. In addition, BLE also
proprieties: no security, encryption only [advanced encryption provides replay protection via the SignCounter field for
standard (AES)-CTR], authentication only (AES-CBC-MAC), authenticated data over an unencrypted channel and pri-vacy
and encryption and authentication (AES-CCM). The AES-CBC- services by frequently changing the BLE device address to
MAC cipher suite ensures the authentication of the frame avoid being tracked. BLE has two primary components, the
including a 32, 64, or 128 bits message integrity code (MIC) controller (PHY and link), and the host (upper layers).
behind the payload. The AES-CTR enables encryption with Message confidentiality is typically achieved by encrypting
cipher block of 128-byte length to guarantee confidentiality. The the payload portion of a frame. The header information is not
AES-CCM combines authentication with AES-CBC-MAC encrypted. At the controller, link layer security in BLE
followed by encryption with AES-CTR. provides confidentiality and integrity via AES-CCM. Data
Regarding the keys management process, three kinds of channel packet data units (PDUs) are authenticated with a 4-
keys are defined. byte MIC. The encryption is done over the data channel PDU
1) The master key, initially predistributed to all the nodes payload and the MIC. Advertising channel PDUs are not
of the network. encrypted or authenticated and this provides opportunities for
2) The network key shared by the legitimate nodes after a range of attacks like inference attacks, eavesdropping,
authorization and authentication services provided by message modification and packet injection with incorrect con-
the upper layers. trol sequences. To secure all data, including the meta-data, an
3) The link key established between neighbor legitimate innovative approach is based on the black network con-cept.
nodes. Adversaries should not be able to determine the source, the
So as requirements, the master key must be physically secured destination, the frame sequence number or the replay counter.
to avoid node tampering because the attacker capable to get The resulting link layer advertising and data PDUs are BLE
this key can take the control of the whole IEEE 802.15.4 compatible but with a decreased routing and payload
network [35]. efficiency [30]. Finally, to assess the vulnerability of BLE
2) Bluetooth Low-Energy: This communication technology technology, researchers have shown that BLE technology
uses a short range radio with a minimal amount of power to presents high vulnerabilities due to its specific authentication
operate for a longer time (even for years) compared to mechanism [31].
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3) IEEE 802.11/WiFi: The family of Wi-Fi networks layer confidentiality, integrity and authentication through
mainly based on the IEEE 802.11 b/g/n standards is explo- IPsec protocol.
sively expanding. This technology uses WEP, WPA, or In IPv6, the secure neighbor discovery (SEND) protocol is
WPA2 protocols to implement authentication and encryption a security extension of the neighbor discovery proto-col
processes. WEP uses a 64- or 128-bit encryption key that must (NDP), used in IPv6 for the discovery of neighboring nodes
be manually entered on wireless access points and devices and on the local link. NDP determines the link layer addresses of
does not change while the temporal key integrity proto-col other nodes, finds available routers, maintains reachability
(TKIP) has been adopted for WPA employing a per-packet information, performs address resolution and detects address
key that dynamically generates a new 128-bit key for each duplication. SEND enhances this insecure protocol by
packet to prevent attacks that compromised WEP. Finally, the employing cryptographically generated addresses (CGAs) to
protocol used by WPA2, based on the advanced encryption encrypt NDP messages. This method is inde-pendent of
standard (AES) cipher is significantly stronger in protection IPSec, which is typically used to secure IPv6 transmissions.
for both privacy and integrity than the RC4-based TKIP used The introduction of CGA helps to nullify neigh-
by WPA. In particular, both WPA and WPA2 use the same bor/solicitation/advertisement spoofing, neighbor unreachabil-
authentication system. Enterprise networks use EAP protocol ity detection failure, DOS attacks, router solicitation, and
for mutual authentication through a RADIUS server, whilst, advertisement and replay attacks. Using IPv4, it is fairly easy
for home and small office networks, preshared key (PSK) pro- for an attacker to redirect traffic between two legitimate hosts
tocol is used. In addition, WPA adopts Michael algorithm for and manipulate the conversation or at least observe it but IPv6
data integrity but WPA2 implements a more robust, efficient makes this very difficult [34].
and stronger algorithm, CBC-MAC. In [32], a comparative 2) 6LoWPAN: Since IoT system is also composed by
study of WPA and WPA2 in terms of security methods used WSNs, the Internet protocol (IP) is not suitable for such
and throughput, is presented drawing the main conclusions on resource constrained devices. Thus, 6LoWPAN protocol pro-
how WPA2 has less reduction on network throughput than vides an adaptation layer to connect the IP world to the
WPA due to its encryption algorithm (CCMP) which is highly resource constrained devices enabling the access of the sensor
improved compared to TKIP. networks world to the Internet. In the OSI abstraction model,
4) LTE: This communication technology is the long term 6LoWPAN is an adaptation layer located between the network
evolution standard for cellular technology based on the layer and the link layer. 6LoWPAN achieves low overhead by
Universal Mobile Telecommunications System (UMTS). For applying cross-layer optimization and compression of the
the LTE network, two standardized algorithms are required headers of the IPv6 protocol stack.
for the radio interface, namely: 1) EPS encryption algo-rithm In [35], three interesting solutions to provide security in
(EEA) and 2) EPS integrity algorithm (EIA). Two 6LoWPAN networks are proposed and discussed.
confidentiality and integrity algorithm sets had already been 1) Using security features of IEEE 802.15.4 (link layer
developed and standardized. The first set, 128-EEA1 and 128- security).
EIA1, is based on the stream cipher SNOW 3G, and was 2) Compressed IPsec to provide end-to-end security at the
inherited from the UMTS network. The second set, 128-EEA2 network layer also using header compression tech-
and 128-EIA2, is based on the block cipher AES. niques [38].
3GPP Systems and Architecture Group agreed in May 2009 3) Compressed DTLS to provide end-to-end security at the
on a requirement for a third encryption and integrity algorithm transport layer. A specific technique to compress DTLS
set, 128-EEA3 and 128-EIA3, based on a core stream cipher header in a standard compliant way into a 6LoWPAN
algorithm named ZUC. network can be used to achieve better energy efficiency
A comparative study among all core LTE cryptographic by reducing the message size.
algorithms such as ZUC, SNOW 3G, and AES is provided in The main difference among these solutions is that link layer
[33]. The results of this paper show that SNOW 3G offers less security ensures the security of the wireless medium, whereas
immunity against different attacks than ZUC and AES. upper layer security is designed to achieve end-to-end security
between two peers.
3) RPL: It is a standardized routing protocol for the IP-
B. Network Level connected IoT devices. It creates a destination-oriented
The main functions of the network layer include message directed acyclic graph (DODAG) and supports different
forwarding and host addressing supported by the standard modes of operation: unidirectional traffic to a DODAG root
ISO/OSI architecture through protocols such as IPv4/IPv6, (typi-cally the 6BR/border router) and bi-directional traffic
6LoWPAN, and routing protocol for low power and lossy between constrained nodes and a DODAG root. Nodes have a
networks (RPL). rank that determines their individual position with respect to
1) IPv4/IPv6: IPv6 is the main enabler for extending IoT to the DODAG root and relative to other nodes.
the future Internet. In fact, IPv6 extends the existing IPv4 The RPL specification [39] defines secure versions of the
notation from 32 to 128 bits per IP address offering scalability various routing control messages, as well as three basic secu-rity
for IoT world. In addition, IPv6 use mandatory end-to-end modes. In the first mode, named “unsecured,” RPL control
encryption, while in IPv4, it remains an extra option. IPv6 messages are sent without any additional security mechanisms. In
also supports more-secure name resolution achieving network the second mode, called “preinstalled,” nodes joining an
2490 IEEE INTERNET OF THINGS JOURNAL, VOL. 5, NO. 4, AUGUST 2018

RPL instance have preconfigured symmetric key that enable due to its inherent design which supports broadcast encryp-
them to process and generate secured RPL messages. The tion (one encryption message delivered to multiple intended
third mode, named “authenticated,” it is used for devices users) that make it suitable for IoT applications; moreover, the
operating as routers. A device may initially join the network feasibility of SMQTT approach through simulations and
using a pre-configured key and the preinstalled security mode, performance evaluation has been validated.
and next obtain a different cryptographic key from a key In [43], two different types of ABEs, key-policy ABE and
authority with which it may start functioning as a router. The ciphertext-policy ABE, have been evaluated on different
key authority is responsible for authenticating and authorizing classes of mobile devices including a laptop and a smartphone
the device for this purpose. Each RPL message has a secure providing a comprehensive study of ABE techniques and their
variant and AES/CCM algorithms [40] are used to support performances. Compared to the RSA (an asymmetric crypto-
confidentiality and integrity. graphic algorithm), ABE is slower and has more data
Even with message security that enables encryption and overhead and energy consumption; however, the main
authentication, networks are vulnerable to a number of wire-less advantage to use ABE is to enable a flexible and fine grained
and routing attacks aimed to disrupt the network. Hence, an IDS access control and to offer scalable key management because
is necessary to detect intruders that are trying to disrupt the senders and receivers are completely decoupled.
network. In [41], a novel IDS for IoT systems is presented. This In IoT world, protection of privacy can be a challenging task
IDS called SVELTE is well designed for 6LowPAN networks because connected objects can generate an enormous amount of
with RPL in which a hybrid, centralized and distributed approach data, some of which actually constitute personal data. In addition,
is used to place IDS modules both in the 6BR and in the resource it is difficult to control the data flow without having any user
constrained nodes. SVELTE has three main centralized modules interface or adequate tools for the user. An efficient solution to
developed in the 6BR. The first module, called 6LoWPAN enforce security policy rules in IoT is described in [44] and [45].
mapper, gathers information about the RPL network and This enforcement solu-tion consists of a model-based security
reconstructs the network in the 6BR. The second module is the toolkit named SecKit that is integrated within the MQTT
intrusion detection component that analyzes the mapped data and protocol. The policy enforcement support for MQTT is based on
detects intrusion. The third mod-ule, a distributed mini-firewall, a custom pol-icy enforcement point (PEP) component
is designed to offload nodes by filtering unwanted traffic toward implemented in C language. The PEP is a connector that: 1)
resource-constrained network. intercepts the messages exchanged inside the broker with a
publish-subscribe mechanism; 2) notifies these messages as
events in the SecKit policy decision point implemented in Java;
C. Service and Application Level and optionally
As a result of the wide-spread and rapid evolution of IoT 3) receives an enforcement action (allow, deny, modify, and
devices, different protocols have been developed in order to delay) to be executed. In addition, this PEP has been embed-
support the emerging M2M data communications such as ded in the Mosquitto Broker [46] using security plugin. The
MQTT, constrained application protocol (CoAP), XMPP, and following list summarizes advantages of this solution respect
AMQP. to the missing features in current MQTT implementations.
In this section, we discuss issues and some innovative solu- 1) Modification of messages and identity obfuscation.
tions proposed by researchers for the two most widely used 2) Delaying of messages to prevent real-time tracking of
application protocols: 1) MQTT and 2) CoAP. In particular, devices and users.
these protocols overcomes other solutions in terms of min- 3) Enforcement when a message is delivered to a client in
imum header size, power consumption, and data loss; thus, addition to enforcement when a client subscribes a topic.
they are well suited for constrained-resource applications [21]. 4) Support for reactive rules to notify, log, or request user
1) Message Queuing Telemetry Transport: This protocol is a consent.
publisher/subscriber messaging protocol specifically developed 5) Misbehavior checking rules, for DoS attack detection.
for constrained devices. Message queuing telemetry transport The main drawback of this approach is the high overhead
(MQTT) security is based on the TLS/SSL to provide transport when one publisher has many interested subscribers, and a
encryption. It provides a security against eavesdropping. On the policy needs to be checked for every subscriber. This
application layer, MQTT application provides client identifier overhead introduces a small latency of a few tens of ms.
and username/password credentials which can be used for 2) Constrained Application Protocol: The protocol is an
devices authentication. The disadvantage of MQTT security is the HTTP remarkable version to match the IoT requirements for
use of TLS/SSL which is not optimized for constrained devices. low overhead. The CoAP uses UDP protocol and encryption
In fact, using TLS/SSL with certificates and session key is most commonly accomplished using DTLS and some-times
management for a multitude of heterogeneous devices, is surely with IPSec. DTLS is applied in the transport layer and the
cumbersome [42]. For this reasons, a more scalable, lightweight, fundamental AES/CCM provides confidentiality, integrity,
and robust security mechanism is required. authentication, and nonrepudiation.
In [42] a secure MQTT (SMQTT) is proposed to increase The Californium framework (implemented in Java)
security features of the existing MQTT protocol and its provides a set of security capabilities for CoAP. There are
variants based on lightweight attribute-based encryption four security modes defined for CoAP to implement TLS [47].
(ABE), over elliptic curves. The advantage of using ABE is 1) No security.
FRUSTACI et al.: EVALUATING CRITICAL SECURITY ISSUES OF IoT WORLD: PRESENT AND FUTURE CHALLENGES 2491

2) PSK enabled by sensing devices preprogrammed with

symmetric cryptographic keys. This mode is suitable for
devices that are unable to support the public key
cryptography.
3) Raw public key (RPK) for devices that require authen-
tication based on public key. This mode enables a TLS
session without certificate.
4) Certificates to support authentication based on public
key where keys are always validated according to a
trusted entity known as certificate authority. The draw-
back of using the certificates is mainly due to heavy
data format and fixed costs. A clear advantage, how-
ever, is the possibility to revoke certificates if the device
is compromised.
Key management is a drawback of the CoAP security which is
a common issue in almost all protocols. Another problem is the
heavy cost of computation and high handshake in the message
which causes message fragmentation. Many studies proposed Fig. 3. Qualitative risk evaluation for IoT system.
different solutions to compress the DTLS. In fact, a novel DTLS
header compression scheme called Lithe has been proposed in hardware limitations and technological heterogeneity that
[48] with the aim of significantly reducing the energy limit the implementation of effective security measures.
consumption by leveraging the 6LoWPAN stan-dard without On the other side, the transportation layer can be classified
compromising the end-to-end security properties. In addition, the as a lower risk level respect to the perception layer due to the
evaluation results show significant gains in terms of packet size, known drawbacks of standard wireless data transfer tech-
energy consumption, processing time, and network-wide nologies, as well as known threats in access networks. The
response times when compressed DTLS is enabled. A clear advantage of this layer is the intensive research on the vul-
limitation of this solution is that DTLS header compression is nerabilities and the continuous development of new protection
applied only within 6LoWPAN networks. methods.
In [49], a security analysis between CoAP and MQTT is Finally, the application layer has a “variable” level of risk
presented with a particular focus on the transport level protocol depending on the specific implemented application; in fact, this
used (UDP for CoAP and TCP for MQTT), which inherently layer is generally accessible from a large number of users and in
enforces the usage of DTLS for CoAP and TLS for MQTT. some IoT applications, the impact of both data and services
Moreover a set of security modes and also mandatory-to- confidentiality, integrity, or availability losses, can be signif-icant
implement ciphers are supported by CoAP whilst, in contrast, the and not tolerable (i.e., strategic sectors such as energy sector or
MQTT specification only enumerates a list of security con- intelligent transportation systems). In addition, com-pared to the
siderations and does not enforce any kind of implementations. perception layer, it has more mature technology, less threats, and
The comparative analysis has been conducted considering the already tested security methods.
four security modes already described. According to this anal- Fig. 3 graphically resumes this qualitative risk evaluation
ysis, RPK is not supported by MQTT, but it represents a mixed for each layer of the IoT system.
security alternative to heavier certificates and lightweight PSKs.
However, the traditional certificates-based authenti-cation and A. Critical Security Issues Identification
encryption offers the highest level of security. Furthermore, the According to the previous analysis, the most vulnerable layer
possibility to revoke certificates, consider-ing illicit usage, makes of the presented IoT system model is the perception layer and the
it more capable to react to different attacks as already been critical issues to solve in next future are as follows.
proven with HTTP. In addition, due to different standard security 1) Hardware InSecurity of IoT Devices: This issue depends
mechanisms, the interoperability issue has a non trivial solution, on device manufacturers’s negligence.
mostly based on security level negotiation between IoT devices. 2) Lack of Lightweight Cryptographic Algorithms and
Effective Key Management: Protecting data
confidential-ity and integrity at rest or in transit.
3) Lack of Lightweight Trust Management System: It is
VI. CRITICAL ISSUES AND FUTURE DIRECTIONS important to ensure credibility especially in the relation-
To direct further research on the most vulnerable layer of ships between IoT devices placed in open and dynamic
IoT system model, we can use risk classification limited to a environments.
qualitative evaluation of each layer due to lack of quantitative 4) InSecure Routing Protocols: Providing protection
metrics. against routing threats with specific focus on the WSNs.
The perception layer can be classified with the highest secu- 5) Lack of Lightweight Anti-Malware Solutions: Providing
rity risk level for physical exposure of IoT devices, deployed also protection from malware that can infect the software
in open environments. In addition, it has very large installed on the IoT device.
2492 IEEE INTERNET OF THINGS JOURNAL, VOL. 5, NO. 4, AUGUST 2018

TABLE IV
METRIC VALUES AND BS FOR CRITICAL AND OPEN ISSUES IN IOT SYSTEM

Regarding the transportation layer, since it is composed by the security of data privacy would be of great importance in
a mixed wireless network technologies, the most critical and smart healthcare, but in intelligent urban management, data
open issues to be addressed are as follows. authenticity and integrity would be more important.
1) Physical Wireless InSecurity: The broadcast nature of Moreover, at the present time, there are no universal standards
wireless communications makes the physical channel for the developing of IoT application layer making very
extremely vulnerable to classic data transit attacks [29]. difficult the interoperability among them (e.g., different
2) DDoS Attacks: Because of the heterogeneity and com- software and applications have different authentication
plexity of the IoT networks, the transportation layer is mechanisms, which makes integration of all of them very
vulnerable and exposed to this kind of attacks. Usually difficult to ensure data privacy and identity authentication).
the solution is to upgrade the system and use DDoS At this layer the most serious issues that must be considered
attack detection and prevention. Currently, there is no are as follows.
good solution to solve the network DDoS attack. 1) Common Application Vulnerabilities: These vulnerabili-
Finally, the application layer represents the most varie-gate ties can be exploited by an attacker to hack an applica-
security context, in fact, different security requirements need tion service. In this context, the Open Web Application
to be satisfied for different applications; for instance, Security Project [53], [55] provides a list of critical
FRUSTACI et al.: EVALUATING CRITICAL SECURITY ISSUES OF IoT WORLD: PRESENT AND FUTURE CHALLENGES 2493

Fig. 4. Research direction.

and common software vulnerabilities for Web appli- 3) The authentication (Au) metric that describes the num-
cation or cloud services, coupled with few possible ber of times that an attacker must authenticate to a target
solutions. to exploit it.
2) Privacy Protection Issue: It is necessary to provide user
BS = (0.6 ∗ Impact + 0.4 ∗ Exploitability − 1.5)
data protection mechanisms in which user can also
transparently enforce own privacy preferences [54]. ∗ f (Impact). (1)
The impact metrics measure how a vulnerability, if
exploited, will directly affect an IT asset, where the impacts
B. Critical Security Issues Evaluation are independently defined as the degree of loss of
confidentiality (C), integrity (I), and availability (A).
To evaluate the presented critical security issues, with the To calculate these sets of metrics, the following mathemat-
aim of directing the research activities in the next future, we ical equations have been used:
considered them as intrinsic vulnerabilities of the IoT Systems
and we calculated a severity score for each of them by using a Exploitability = 20 ∗ AC ∗ Au ∗ AV
novel approach through conventional base score (BS) Impact = 10.41 ∗ (1 − (1 − C) ∗ (1 − I) ∗ (1 − A))
equations named common vulnerability scoring system
where
(CVSS) v2, proposed by the National Infrastructure Advisory
Council [50], [51]. CVSS is a free and open industry stan-dard f (Impact) = 0 if Impact = 0
for assessing the severity of computer system security f (Impact) = 1.176 otherwise.
vulnerabilities. It attempts to assign severity scores to differ- The possible values of the six base metrics are shown in
ent vulnerabilities, allowing managers to prioritize responses Table V and they are chosen considering the characteristics of
and resources according to the specific threat. Scores are cal- each specific security issue.
culated according to several metrics that approximate ease of Table IV resumes the results obtained by applying the
exploit and the impact of exploit. Scores range from 0 to 10, CVSSv2 metrics to the security open issues identified in the
with 10 being the most severe. proposed IoT system. In particular, to compute the BS, we
The BS shown in (1) is composed of two sets of metrics: have used CVSSv2 calculator, freely provided by National
1) the exploitability metrics and 2) the impact metrics. Institute of Standards and Technology [52].
The exploitability metrics capture how the vulnerability is Once computed the BS, the security issues have been sorted
accessed and whether or not extra conditions are required to according to the availability of the solutions to better under-
exploit it. These metrics are as follows. stand in which direction the research must be oriented. By
1) The access vector (AV) that shows how a vulnerability looking Fig. 4 that graphically resume the conducted analysis,
may be exploited. the following meaningful considerations can be done.
2) The access complexity (AC) metric that describes how 1) Hardware insecurity and common application
easy or difficult it is to exploit the discovered vulnerabilities have already many mature solu-tions.
vulnerability. However, the real applicability of those solutions
2494 IEEE INTERNET OF THINGS JOURNAL, VOL. 5, NO. 4, AUGUST 2018

TABLE V
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stan-dard IoT protocols,” in Proc. Int. Conf. Appl. Theor. Electricity
(ICATE), Craiova, Romania, 2016, pp. 1–6. Giancarlo Fortino (SM’12) received the Ph.D.
[50] CVSS. Accessed: Mar. 2017. [Online]. Available: degree in computer engineering from the University
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CVSS of Calabria (Unical), Rende, Italy, in 2000.
[51] CVSSv2. Accessed: Mar. 2017. [Online]. Available: He is a Professor of computer engineering with
https://www.first.org/cvss/v2/guide the Department of Informatics, Modeling,
[52] Common Vulnerability Scoring System Version 2 Calculator. Accessed: Electronics, and Systems, Unical. He is the co-
Mar. 2017. [Online]. Available: https://nvd.nist.gov/CVSS/CVSS-v2- founder and the CEO of SenSysCal S.r.l., Rende, a
Calculator Unical spin-off focused on innovative Internet of
[53] OWASP Project. Accessed: Mar. 2017. [Online]. Available: Things (IoT) systems. He has authored over 300
https://www.owasp.org/ index.php/OWASP_Internet_of_Things_Project papers in international journals, conferences, and
[54] The Internet of Things (IoT): An Overview. Accessed: Mar. 2017. books. His current research interests include
[Online]. Available: https://www.internetsociety.org/doc/iot-overview agent-based computing, wireless sensor networks, and IoT technology.