State-of-the-Art and Challenges for the Internet of Things Security

The Internet of Things (IoT) concept refers to the usage of standard Internet protocols to allow for human-to-thing and thing-to-thing communication. The security needs for IoT systems are well- recognized and many standardization steps to provide security have been taken, for example, the specification of Constrained Application Protocol (CoAP) secured with Datagram Transport Layer Security (DTLS). However, security challenges still exist, not only because there are some use cases that lack a suitable solution, but also because many IoT devices and systems have been designed and deployed with very limited security capabilities. In this document, we first discuss the various stages in the lifecycle of a thing. Next, we document the security threats to a thing and the challenges that one might face to protect against these threats. Lastly, we discuss the next steps needed to facilitate the deployment of secure IoT systems. This document can be used by implementors and authors of IoT specifications as a reference for details about security considerations while documenting their specific security challenges, threat models, and mitigations. This document is a product of the IRTF Thing-to-Thing Research Group (T2TRG).