Flexible and Efficient Security Framework for Many-to-Many Communication in a Publish/Subscribe Architecture

Area of Science:

• Computer Science
• Network Security
• Internet of Things

Background:

• Message Queuing Telemetry Transport (MQTT) is a popular IoT protocol.
• The secured version, MQTTS, has limitations in security features and efficiency.
• Current MQTTS offers one-to-one security with high computational and communication costs.

Purpose of the Study:

• To propose a flexible and lightweight security solution for MQTT.
• To address the limitations of MQTTS, particularly for many-to-many communication.
• To reduce the computational and communication overhead in securing MQTT connections.

Main Methods:

• Development of a novel security integration for the MQTT protocol.
• Implementation of a solution designed for many-to-many communication scenarios.
• Evaluation of the proposed solution's impact on connection setup overhead.

Main Results:

• The proposed solution significantly reduces communication overhead by 80%.
• Client-side computational overhead for secure connection setup is reduced by 40%.
• The solution provides enhanced security for many-to-many communication in IoT.

Conclusions:

• The developed security solution offers a flexible and efficient alternative to MQTTS.
• It effectively addresses the shortcomings of MQTTS, improving performance and security.
• This advancement is crucial for scalable and secure IoT deployments.