Cellular Internet of Things Security

Abstract

Cellular Internet of Things is a rather new concept which emerged due to the demands for mobility and extended coverage of the Internet of Things. Briefly, the concept means that the cellular network is used as network layer for IoT applications. In fact, the cellular network is originally intended for mobile phones which are on always online and require higher data rates compared to IoT devices, which quite often have limited power and only communicate occasionally using a few bytes. To that end, 5G is aiming at supporting a variety of IoT applications with diversified requirements in terms of mobility, bandwidth, latency and reliability by making use of the concept of network slicing. Unfortunately, although better security is offered to the IoT applications, due to the inherent stronger security at the network level compared to other wireless technologies, it is not sufficient and IoT applications are left to themselves to ensure appropriate security. Furthermore, the number of IoT devices used in critical applications like eldercare are increasing day by day and bringing big security challenges, in this case, for health care organizations, IoT providers and most seriously for the elderly users. Attackers launch many attacks using compromised IoT devices such as Distributed Denial of Services (DDoS), among others. To detect and prevent these types of attacks on IoT devices connected to the cellular network, it is essential to have a proper overview of the existing threats and vulnerabilities. This work aims to provide higher level of security at the same time as relieving the administration burden of the IoT applications, by focusing on the use of the concept of identity federation which is used in the world wide web to provide single-sign-on i.e., the user can just sign in once at one web site and move around to other ones without having to sign in again, utilizing Machine Learning techniques and algorithms to develop a platform that is device anomaly detection oriented and also to provide a helpful threat modelling tool to the Telco community to better document attacks targeting IoT devices in a cellular network to increase its security preparedness and readiness.