Message Queuing Telemetry Transport (MQTT) Security: A Cryptographic Smart Card Approach

The Message Queuing Telemetry Transport (MQTT) protocol is one of the most extended protocols on the Internet of Things (IoT). However, this protocol does not implement a strong security scheme by default, which does not allow a secure authentication mechanism between participants in the communication. Furthermore, we cannot trust the confidentiality and integrity of data. Lightweight IoT devices send more and more sensible data in areas of Smart Building, Smart City, Smart House, Smart Car, Connected Car, Health Care, Smart Retail, Industrial IoT (IIoT), etc. This makes the security challenges in the protocols used in the IoT particularly important. The standard of MQTT protocol strongly recommends implement it over Transport Layer Security (TLS) instead of plain TCP. Nonetheless, this option is not possible in most lightweight devices that make up the IoT ecosystem. Quite often, the constrained resources of IoT devices prevent the use of secure asymmetric cryptography algorithms implemented by themselves. In this article, we propose making a security schema in MQTT protocol using Cryptographic Smart Cards, for both challenges, the authentication schema and the trusted data confidentiality and data integrity. We carry out this security schema without modifying the standard protocol messages. And finally, we present a time results experiment using an example implementation model with JavaCard library.