Post-doctoral research program Implementing solutions to secure the Internet of Things

Scientific background :

With the development of technologies for the Internet of Things (IoT), it is essential to be able to secure the ecosystem of connected objects. Indeed, the aim of an IoT network is to interconnect various systems in order to exchange data and resources. One way of doing this is to implement a decentralized trust and reputation system.

To this end, we have developed two solutions as well as an IoT-specific evaluation platform.  Wallance [1], a lightweight adaptation of blockchain for the IoT, enables trust between networks (gateway-to-gateway), while TrustLib [2], a lightweight trust protocol for the IoT, establishes trust between objects (object-to-object and gateway-to-object). Combined, these two solutions enable the implementation of a trust ecosystem for the IoT. In the absence of a standard, this solution seems to be a good bet for the future.

The aim of this postdoc is to build on the developments of the last few years, but also to carry out further research into lightweight trust protocols for the IoT. Indeed, this topic is still too little addressed in the literature. To this end, we would like to call on the services of a post-doctoral fellow for 6 months. Initially, he will take charge of the various developments made during Loic Dalmasso's thesis. Then, he will work on new measurements of our IoT security solutions, to demonstrate their advantages over existing solutions. Finally, he will propose new solutions to improve the existing ones.

Research program :

During his/her stay at LIRMM (6 months), the post-doctoral student will be required to:

• Understanding how Wallance and Trustlib work (1 month) ;
• Get to grips with the flow of tools associated with LIRMM's IoT platforms (1 month) ;
• Evaluate and promote the solutions proposed by the laboratory (2 months) ;
• Propose new solutions (2 months).

References :

[1] Dalmasso, L., Bruguier, F., Lamlih, A., & Benoit, P. (2020, June). Wallance, an Alternative to Blockchain for IoT. In 2020 IEEE 6th World Forum on Internet of Things (WF-IoT) (pp. 1-6). IEEE.

[2] Dalmasso, L. (2020). De la vulnérabilité des nœuds capteurs à la certification des transactions sur le réseau, une approche de la sécurisation de l’Internet des Objets (Doctoral dissertation, Université Montpellier).