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Internet of Things... Security

gadget.iom

I have recently purchased an ENC28J60 module and started experimenting with ethernet connectivity on my various Arduino boards. As to be expected with the Arduino community there are a good number of resources, on here and the wider web, for support in getting a basic project up and running.

 

I have mainly been experimenting with sending GET requests to a web server and acting upon the responses, and while there is a great deal of guidance about how to achieve this, none of them seem to contemplate the aspect of secure communications. While this may not be so much of an issue on a private LAN, the very nature of 'Internet of Things' would suggest that this communication will take place over a third party network at some point.

 

I have spent some time investigating the process of implementing some basic encryption on these communications and have found the availability of such information to be very weak. Methods I have looked into so far are RC4 and XOR, and some of the examples actually work on the local microcontroller, but fail to encrypt/decrypt successfully in the PHP implementations at the server.

 

Have you implemented any kind of encryption in your microcontroller projects? How successful were they? Do you think there are enough resources for data encryption? Or is there something obvious that I've missed? image

 

Would love to hear your thoughts and opinions.

Paul

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  • One of the issues with security and the Arduino UNO with the ENC or the WizNet chips for Ethernet is that most of the IP stack is handled by the UNO, not the chipset

     

    The Wiznet does more work for you than the ENC but is still remains that if you want SSL which is the normal web security layer applied to protect the message transport from client to host takes more resources than available on the device

     

     

     

    To apply true encryption also is a heavy resource operation as well as the time it takes to perform the encryption

     

     

     

    Most projects move toward a more advanced controller if they want SLL or encryption, for instance the CC3200 from TI has an encryption engine built in hardware on chip so it is relatively easy to use with minimal code, they can also handle SSL natively

     

     

     

    Newer network modules like the recent WIFI modules may be able to handle SLL on behalf of the UNO but that’s because they have a micro-controller of their own offloading the main CPU

     

     

     

    Regards

     

     

     

    Peter

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  • One of the issues with security and the Arduino UNO with the ENC or the WizNet chips for Ethernet is that most of the IP stack is handled by the UNO, not the chipset

     

    The Wiznet does more work for you than the ENC but is still remains that if you want SSL which is the normal web security layer applied to protect the message transport from client to host takes more resources than available on the device

     

     

     

    To apply true encryption also is a heavy resource operation as well as the time it takes to perform the encryption

     

     

     

    Most projects move toward a more advanced controller if they want SLL or encryption, for instance the CC3200 from TI has an encryption engine built in hardware on chip so it is relatively easy to use with minimal code, they can also handle SSL natively

     

     

     

    Newer network modules like the recent WIFI modules may be able to handle SLL on behalf of the UNO but that’s because they have a micro-controller of their own offloading the main CPU

     

     

     

    Regards

     

     

     

    Peter

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