MQTT Security: A Novel Fuzzing Approach

Abstract

The Internet of Things is a concept that is increasingly present in our lives. The emergence of intelligent devices has led to a paradigm shift in the way technology interacts with the environment, leading society to a smarter planet. Consequently, new advanced telemetry approaches appear to connect all kinds of devices with each other, with companies, or with other networks, such as the Internet. On the road to an increasingly interconnected world, where critical devices rely on communication networks to provide an essential service, there arises the need to ensure the security and reliability of these protocols and applications. In this paper, we discuss a security-based approach for MQTT (Message Queue Telemetry Transport), which stands out as a very lightweight and widely used messaging and information exchange protocol for IoT (Internet of Things) devices throughout the world. To that end, we propose the creation of a framework that allows for performing a novel, template-based fuzzing technique on the MQTT protocol. The first experimental results showed that performance of the fuzzing technique presented here makes it a good candidate for use in network architectures with low processing power sensors, such as Smart Cities. In addition, the use of this fuzzer in widely used applications that implement MQTT has led to the discovery of several new security flaws not hitherto reported, demonstrating its usefulness as a tool for finding security vulnerabilities.

Replay-Attack Detection and Prevention Mechanism in Industry 4.0 Landscape for Secure SECS/GEM Communications

“…The security mechanism has captured the attention of both academics and business leaders [15]. Since MQTT's mode of operation is the root cause of security problems, it is especially susceptible to cyberattacks [16]. Additionally, many security solutions have been proposed to address the MQTT's security flaws [17][18][19].…”

MultiFuzz: A Coverage-Based Multiparty-Protocol Fuzzer for IoT Publish/Subscribe Protocols

“…It mainly focuses on the fuzzing of ordinary programs in IoT firmware but not the network protocols. In [ 40 ], the authors propose a template-based fuzzing method to fuzz the MQTT protocol. The fuzzer is at the man-in-the-middle position between the client and the broker, and it selectively mutates the packets that match the specified types (e.g., PUBLISH messages).…”

Vessel to shore data movement through the Internet of Floating Things: A microservice platform at the edge

“…MQTT is widely used for machine‐to‐machine (M2M) communication, and it has become an important component of modern IoT applications, including cloud data transfer, which helps particularly in extreme environments such as the off‐shore sea considered in this work. Moreover, it is commonly used in applications with real‐time or near real‐time requirements, often using constraint devices for which saving power and compute matter, leveraging on an optional Transport Layer Security (TLS, Secure‐MQTT on 8883 port) because MQTT has no native support for security 33,34 . Its first version has been introduced in 1999, while the last release is from 2014 and today MQTT is an open OASIS and ISO standard (ISO/IEC PRF 20922).…”

“…Moreover, it is commonly used in applications with real-time or near real-time requirements, often using constraint devices for which saving power and compute matter, leveraging on an optional Transport Layer Security (TLS, Secure-MQTT on 8883 port) because MQTT has no native support for security. 33,34…”