Enabling Design of Secure IoT Systems with Trade-Off-Aware Architectural Tactics.

Area of Science:

• Computer Science
• Software Engineering
• Cybersecurity

Background:

• The proliferation of Internet of Things (IoT) devices introduces complex security and privacy challenges.
• Existing architectural design guidelines often lack explicit consideration of performance, energy, and processing trade-offs crucial for IoT.
• There is a need for structured approaches to aid architects in balancing security with other quality attributes in IoT systems.

Purpose of the Study:

• To extend existing architectural tactics taxonomies with IoT-specific trade-offs.
• To align these trade-offs with ISO 25010:2023 quality characteristics for auditability.
• To provide a validated technique for designing secure IoT systems.

Main Methods:

• Development of an extended catalog of architectural tactics incorporating IoT-specific trade-offs.
• Illustration of the technique using the Nunatak environmental monitoring system design.
• Empirical validation through a controlled experiment comparing design approaches with and without trade-off information.

Main Results:

• Architectural tactics catalogs including trade-off information significantly improved decision-making effectiveness (Precision).
• The enhanced information led to greater usefulness (F1-Score) in system design.
• Novice designers particularly benefited from the trade-off-aware approach.

Conclusions:

• Trade-off-aware catalogs of architectural tactics enable systematic and auditable design of secure IoT systems.
• The proposed method enhances the design process, especially for less experienced practitioners.
• Wider adoption can lead to more robust and secure IoT solutions.