SSL Usage in Commercial Internet of Things Platforms

摘要

The uses for the Internet of Things are growing and cloud platforms have become available to manage deployed devices. The security of the Internet of Things is an important consideration and a challenge. There are potentially a large number of devices of limited capability that need to be managed and are required to perform tasks that depend on data flow to the back-end platform. Most platforms use the current industry standard for secure online communication - SSL (HTTPS). However, SSL allows for many different configurations, some of which are not secure. This paper offers an initial study of SSL communications security between devices and platforms by investigating the SSL implementations offered for prominent Internet of Things platforms. It is found that amongst these platforms the strength of the SSL configuration supported vary greatly.