FLEX-IoT: Secure and Resource-Efficient Network Boot System for Flexible-IoT Platform | JoVE Visualize

FLEX-IoT: Secure and Resource-Efficient Network Boot System for Flexible-IoT Platform

Keon-Ho Park¹, Seong-Jin Kim¹, Joobeom Yun¹

¹Department of Computer and Information Security, and Convergence Engineering for Intelligent Drone, Sejong University, Seoul 05006, Korea.

Sensors (Basel, Switzerland)|April 3, 2021

View abstract on PubMed

Summary

FLEX-IoT enhances Internet of Things (IoT) platforms by securing the trivial file transfer protocol (TFTP) and optimizing system image transfers. This improves security and reduces server load for dynamic IoT device roles.

Area of Science:

Computer Science
Network Security
Internet of Things

Background:

Dynamic role changes in Internet of Things (IoT) platforms require flexible system image management.
Traditional trivial file transfer protocol (TFTP) for network booting presents significant security vulnerabilities.
High server demand and network overhead occur during mass system image transfers for diverse IoT device roles.

Purpose of the Study:

To propose FLEX-IoT, a system designed to address security and efficiency challenges in dynamic IoT platforms.
To enable secure and flexible system image transfers for IoT devices with varying operational purposes.
To reduce server load and network overhead during IoT device network booting.

Main Methods:

Implementation of a FLEX-IoT orchestrator utilizing an IoT platform operation schedule.
Development of a secure TFTP service incorporating file access control and attacker deception.
Introduction of an adaptive transfer method for resource-efficient file transfer.
Verification of IoT device identity using a shared hash chain mechanism.

Main Results:

FLEX-IoT significantly enhances the attack resistance of TFTP with minimal overhead.
The system effectively streamlines server performance through resource-efficient file transfers.
Simulation results indicate an average 27% reduction in transferred system image volume from the server.
Minimized response times for network boot requests were achieved via adaptive transfer.

Conclusions:

FLEX-IoT provides a secure and efficient solution for dynamic system image management in large-scale IoT platforms.
The proposed system enhances TFTP security, making it suitable for flexible IoT environments.
Adaptive transfer method optimizes server resource utilization and reduces network burden.