Secure Deployment of Containerized IoT Systems

Internet of Things (IoT) popularity and complexity has grown at an accelerating rate. As a result, IoT security is more critical than ever before. Many services attempt to simplify the bottlenecks of IoT infrastructure, development and deployment which previously fell to developers. However, these services are often proprietary and insecure. In this paper, we explore an alternative IoT service model that uses Docker to securely bootstrap an IoT network running on 3 Raspberry Pis. This service uses containerization technology with Linux to abstract architectural details, software update mechanisms, and network security away from the developer. Devices authenticate and communicate with a remote server using private key cryptography, while OTA updates are delivered via the Docker registry. We show that this model satisfies modern security standards of lightweight technology and fulfills expectations of a deployment platform.