Relevant Cybersecurity Aspects of IoT Microservices Architectures Deployed over Next-Generation Mobile Networks

Abstract

The design and implementation of secure IoT platforms and software solutions represent both a required functional feature and a performance acceptance factor nowadays. This paper describes relevant cybersecurity problems considered during the proposed microservices architecture development. Service composition mechanisms and their security are affected by the underlying hardware components and networks. The overall speedup of the platforms, which are implemented using the new 5G networks, and the capabilities of new performant IoT devices may be wasted by an inadequate combination of authentication services and security mechanisms, by the architectural misplacing of the encryption services, or by the inappropriate subsystems scaling. Considering the emerging microservices platforms, the Spring Boot alternative is used to implement data generation services, IoT sensor reading services, IoT actuators control services, and authentication services, and ultimately assemble them into a secure microservices architecture. Furthermore, considering the designed architecture, relevant security aspects related to the medical and energy domains are analyzed and discussed. Based on the proposed architectural concept, it is shown that well-designed and orchestrated architectures that consider the proper security aspects and their functional influence can lead to stable and secure implementations of the end user’s software platforms.

A Contemporary Secure Microservices Discovery Architecture with Service Tags for Smart City Infrastructures

“…First and foremost, we prioritize security through the implementation of a robust registration and validation mechanism. This mechanism ensures that only authorized microservices can register with the discovery [36] Mobile Service Discovery ✓ × Aldea et al [37] Mobile Service Discovery ✓ × Javed et al [38] Ecosystem ✓ × Proposed Model Mobile Service Discovery, Simurgh, On-site Service ✓ ✓ service, effectively mitigating security risks that often arise in complex microservices ecosystems. Scalability is another core focus of our architecture.…”