A Systematic Review for Evaluating IoT Security: A Focus on Authentication, Protocols and Enabling Technologies

The idea of the Internet of Things (IoT) is to connect objects and smart devices with any digital element seamlessly at anytime, anywhere, with anything. These devices or objects are characterized by low power consumption, lower bandwidth usage, limited processing power, and limited memory capacity. This article presents a systematic literature review (SLR) of the state-of-the-art security challenges of IoT systems designed for authentication. It reports the strengths, weaknesses, threats, and attacks associated with the proposed authentication models. In addition, a comprehensive analysis of IoT-compatible protocols, enabling technologies, and countermeasures to mitigate risk in IoT is investigated. This study uses the PRISMA methodology to review peer-reviewed articles published from 2014 to 2023, studying 100+ papers by selecting approximately 10 papers each year. It provides a detailed overview that contrasts and compares the advances in securing IoT devices to date while identifying remaining open research questions for IoT security designs. This article highlights the need for a survey integrating authentication models with compatible protocols and other lightweight technologies. The examination and analysis in this work contribute to the body of knowledge and serve as a roadmap for researchers and practitioners to improve their work while designing IoT security models.