Secure MQTT Communication for Resource-Constrained devices with ECC-based End-to-End Encryption

Abstract

"The proliferation of Internet of Things (IoT) devices across various fields has significant benefits, but with the limited computational resource on these devices poses a challenge on applying security mechanisms which uncover devices to the emerging cybersecurity threats. Because of the resource limitation on IoT devices, not every security measures are aligned with these devices. This research addresses the critical need for securing communication via Message Queuing Telemetry Transport (MQTT) protocol with tailored encryption which ensures secure data transmission on resource-constrained devices without overloading the limited IoT capabilities. As a solution to this problem, the project introduced an Elliptic Curve Cryptography (ECC)-based tailored end to end encryption mechanism and tested over MQTT protocol which is widely adopted for IoT communication. This approach involves the implementation of ECC-algorithm optimized specially for resource-constrained devices withing the MQTT communication framework. The methodology composed of layered architecture to ensure separate concerns for data collection, encryption on source device, transmission and decryption on destination devices while adhering to the security standards and focusing on minimal processing overhead and maximizing security. Conducted tests of the implemented solution revealed ECC like algorithm can successfully be implemented on resource-constrained devices without highly utilizing the device resources. Average encryption time is recorded as 5.19ms on ESP-32 device and average decryption time is 16.8ms on Raspberry Pi. For the encryption process usage of CPU is recorded as 5.12% and memory as 10.5% on ESP32 whereas on Raspberry Pi it is recorded as 15.4% on CPU and 57.4% on RAM. This recommends that message transmit through the resource-constrained devices can successfully be encrypted and secured without degrading the device performance. "