Evaluation of two models for securing SIP for home network communications

In this work, two different SIP communication models for smart home networks are suggested to meet the security requirements needed for verifying remote user's identity (authentication) and data privacy (confidentiality) of the connection. While the first method uses HTTP Digest Authentication for user registration security and IPSec tunnel for data confidentiality, the second method uses TLS for a secure authentication and SRTP in order to provide data confidentiality during the connection. SRTP key sharing is also provided by TLS before connection is established between a user and a home network. A pilot system is developed by using third party SIP stack implementation to observe the performance of the two alternatives. Results of these evaluations are presented.