SibProMQTT: Protection of the MQTT Communication Protocol Against Sybil Attacks Applied for IoT Devices

• Published in: 2023 International Conference on IC Design and Technology (ICICDT) pp. 108 - 111
• Main Authors: Dewanta, Favian, Wahidah, Ida, Hertiana, Sofia Naning, Sanjoyo, Danu Dwi, Ariffin, Sharifah Hafizah Syed
• Format: Conference Proceeding
• Language: English
• Published: IEEE 25-09-2023
• Subjects: Hardware; Hash functions; Impersonation attacks; Integrated circuits; Internet of Things; MQTT communication; Privacy; Protocols; Resists; Sybil attacks
• ISSN: 2691-0462
• DOI: 10.1109/ICICDT59917.2023.10332423

Internet of Things (IoT) devices require lightweight and fast communication protocol to exchange messages among entities involved in the system. Among several well-known communication protocols, the MQTT is considered as the most lightweight communication protocol for IoT devices. In addition, the MQTT communication protocol can also provide privacy protection due to the existence of the broker connecting publishers and subscribers in an anonymized way without exposing their addresses. However, this anonymity property can lead to Sybil attacks, including message falsification, replay attack, and impersonation attacks to the IoT systems. Therefore, this paper proposes a SibProMQTT scheme that can make the MQTT communication protocol resist against those issues. The SibProMQTT works by using a timestamp and unique session key on each data transmission and eventually encrypting the MQTT payload for avoiding data theft. The experimental results show that our proposed scheme only induces small computational cost addition which is insignificant for the IoT devices. Moreover, security analyses demonstrate that the SibProMQTT can effectively protect the MQTT communication against Sybil attacks as long as the private key cannot be obtained by attackers.