MUP: Simplifying Secure Over-The-Air Update with MQTT for Constrained IoT Devices

Area of Science:

• Computer Science
• Network Security
• Embedded Systems

Background:

• Message Queuing Telemetry Transport (MQTT) is a crucial protocol for Internet of Things (IoT) deployments, connecting edge and cloud devices.
• Security vulnerabilities in IoT devices necessitate rapid firmware updates to mitigate risks.
• Constrained devices in IoT networks often face challenges with traditional update mechanisms.

Purpose of the Study:

• To propose a secure and efficient firmware update protocol for MQTT-connected IoT devices.
• To ensure the authenticity and freshness of firmware updates for constrained IoT devices.
• To identify and address design limitations in MQTT 5 for improved support of resource-limited devices.

Main Methods:

• Development of a novel secure update protocol integrating semantic approaches for MQTT networks.
• Implementation of a prototype on an IoT device with limited resources (32 kB RAM).
• Performance analysis to evaluate the protocol's feasibility and efficiency.

Main Results:

• The proposed protocol successfully ensures firmware authenticity and freshness.
• The semantic integration simplifies the update process within MQTT-based IoT networks.
• Performance analysis confirmed the protocol's viability on constrained devices, revealing MQTT 5 design issues.

Conclusions:

• The developed secure update protocol is effective for MQTT-connected constrained IoT devices.
• The findings provide insights for enhancing MQTT 5 to better support resource-constrained environments.
• This work contributes to improving the overall security and manageability of IoT systems.