Application-layer security for the WoT: Extending CoAP to support end-to-end message security for Internet-integrated sensing applications

Authors

Abstract

Future Web of Things (WoT) applications employing constrained wireless sensing devices will require end-to-end communications with more powerful devices as Internet hosts. While the Constrained Application Protocol (CoAP) is currently being designed with this purpose, its current approach to security is to adopt a transport-layer solution. Transport-layer security may be limitative, considering that it does not provide a granular and flexible approach to security that many applications may require or benefit from. In this context, we target the design and experimental evaluation of alternative security mechanisms to enable the usage of end-to-end secure communications at the application-layer using CoAP. Rather than replacing security at the transport- layer, it is our goal that the proposed mechanisms may be employed in the context of a broader security architecture supporting Internet-integrated wireless sensing applications. Ours is, as far as we known, the first proposal with such goals.

Keywords

CoAP security, DTLS, end-to-end application-layer security, message security, granular security.

Subject

Internet of Things, Security

Conference

The 11th International Conference on Wired/Wireless Internet Communications WWIC 2013, June 2013

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