Protocol-Based and Hybrid Access Control for the IoT: Approaches and Research Opportunities

Abstract

Internet of Things (IoT) applications and services are becoming more prevalent in our everyday life. However, such an interconnected network of intelligent physical entities needs appropriate security to sensitive information. That said, the need for proper authentication and authorization is paramount. Access control is in the front line of such mechanisms. Access control determines the use of resources only to the specified and authorized users based on appropriate policy enforcement. IoT demands more sophisticated access control in terms of its usability and efficiency in protecting sensitive information. This conveys the need for access control to serve system-specific requirements and be flexibly combined with other access control approaches. In this paper, we discuss the potential for employing protocol-based and hybrid access control for IoT systems and examine how that can overcome the limitations of traditional access control mechanisms. We also focus on the key benefits and constraints of this integration. Our work further enhances the need to build hierarchical access control for large-scale IoT systems (e.g., Industrial IoT (IIoT) settings) with protocol-based and hybrid access control approaches. We, moreover, list the associated open issues to make such approaches efficient for access control in large-scale IoT systems.