Securing IoT with Public Key Infrastructure (PKI)

Traditional PKI (Public Key Infrastructure) systems, with their reliability and effectiveness, have been successful in securing the IT ecosystem till date. It also makes them an inevitable candidate for securing the IoT ecosystem as well. Many existing IoT ecosystems are using PKI for achieving the CIA as it enables an organization to establish and maintain a trustworthy digital ecosystem (people, systems, and things) by managing keys and certificates.

The CIA Triad to Security Design

Any effective IoT security solution should meet the requirements put forth by the information security policy, i.e. the CIA triad:

Confidentiality: Prevent information access to unauthorized parties

Integrity: Preserve consistency, accuracy and trustworthiness of the data

Availability: Access to the intended item is ensured at all times

It serves two purposes. First, it can be utilized as a model for building security measures, and second, it warrants that important areas of security are covered.

The CIA security triangle is an important security concept because all security controls, mechanisms, and safeguards are implemented to provide one or more of protection types. All risks, threats, and vulnerabilities are measured for their potential capability to compromise one or all of the CIA triad principles.

Working Towards Hardened Security

Having said that, since PKI has become an integral part of IoT security, we need to be very cautious for situations in IoT where the lifetime of devices maybe for a longer duration, they may be running legacy apps with minimal or no upgrades. Apart from the hardened security and guiding principles, the IoT PKI needs to have some additional qualities while designing IoT security to fully serve the purpose in the IoT landscape:

Flexibility

• Since PKI involves certificates, how easy it is to execute the change of ownership?
• How much work does it require to change the PKI root of trust or certificates?

Customizability

• The requirements of IoT devices may vary drastically. There may be devices in the same network, which need lifetime certificates, whereas some may require short-lived certificates which ultimately leads to another question, does my PKI allow such customizations easily?

Cost-Effective

• How much do we have to shell out for these certificates?

Ease-of-use

• Having deployed the PKI, how much effort do we need to put in for skilling my users?
• Are the certificates managed automatically or need human intervention?

A good IoT security solution will tend to improve the experience, by giving the appropriate tuning knobs in the hands of the user, at the same time automating the mundane operations. Protecting critical information along network connections is crucial and challenging. PKI did emerge as a viable option when applications were processed on centralized servers. But, as the industry is moving towards distributed processing, the need for a new approach has become evident. The goal is to create an ecosystem where the concept of easy generation and rotation of certificates is encouraged and trust is decentralized through the use of technologies that make it possible for geographically disparate entities to reach consensus on the state of a shared database.

Designed keeping these factors in mind, Hughes Systique’s zero-touch onboarding solution is an easy and effective solution that enables a secure network and a happier user.