Securely Connecting IoT Devices with LoRaWAN

IoT devices are usually connected wirelessly to the Internet. Due to the low energy resources, special new protocols are used. One such protocol is Long Range Wide Area Network (LoRaWAN). It was developed with the aim of sending small amounts of data to the Internet as energy-efficiently and robustly as possible. Transmission security played a major role in the specification of LoRaWAN. Wireless LoRaWAN devices communicate via radio with gateways, which send the data packets to a network server connected to the Internet. The network server has interfaces to be connected to existing IoT platforms and applications. Wireless transmission allows a potential attacker many additional attack vectors. We assess the security mechanisms defined in the LoRaWAN specification and describe own research to show, whether those security mechanisms are sufficient. For this, we explain typical attacks on LoRaWAN radio-based networks. We further show which precautions are necessary not to undermine these measures and whether additional security measures beyond the specification may be necessary. An important contribution of this paper is to present the key features of the LoRaWAN specification in a more generally understandable manner.