Security Testbed for Internet-of-Things Devices

• Published in: IEEE transactions on reliability 2019-03, Vol.68 (1), p.23-44
• Main Authors: Siboni, Shachar, Sachidananda, Vinay, Meidan, Yair, Bohadana, Michael, Mathov, Yael, Bhairav, Suhas, Shabtai, Asaf, Elovici, Yuval
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Hardware; Internet of Things; Internet of Things (IoT); IoT devices; privacy; Security; Software; testbed framework; Testing
• ISSN: 0018-9529; 1558-1721
• DOI: 10.1109/TR.2018.2864536

The Internet of Things (IoT) is a global ecosystem of information and communication technologies aimed at connecting any type of object (thing), at any time, and in any place, to each other and to the Internet. One of the major problems associated with the IoT is the heterogeneous nature of such deployments; this heterogeneity poses many challenges, particularly, in the areas of security and privacy. Specifically, security testing and analysis of IoT devices is considered a very complex task, as different security testing methodologies, including software and hardware security testing approaches, are needed. In this paper, we propose an innovative security testbed framework targeted at IoT devices. The security testbed is aimed at testing all types of IoT devices, with different software/hardware configurations, by performing standard and advanced security testing. Advanced analysis processes based on machine learning algorithms are employed in the testbed in order to monitor the overall operation of the IoT device under test. The architectural design of the proposed security testbed along with a detailed description of the testbed implementation is discussed. The testbed operation is demonstrated on different IoT devices using several specific IoT testing scenarios. The results obtained demonstrate that the testbed is effective at detecting vulnerabilities and compromised IoT devices.