Counteracting software integrity attacks on IoT devices with remote attestation: a prototype

Abstract

Internet of Things (IoT) devices are increasingly deployed nowadays in various security-sensitive contexts, e.g., inside homes or in critical infrastructures. The data they collect is of interest to attackers as it may reveal living habits, personal data, or the operational status of specific targets. This paper presents an approach to counter software manipulation attacks against running processes, data, or configuration files on an IoT device, by exploiting trusted computing techniques and remote attestation. We have used a Raspberry Pi 4 single-board computer device equipped with Infineon Trusted Platform Module (TPM) v2, acting as an attester. A verifier node continuously monitors the attester and checks its integrity through remote attestation protocol and TPM-enabled operations. We have exploited the Keylime framework from MIT Lincoln Laboratories as remote attestation software. Through tests, we show that remote attestation can be performed within short time (in order of seconds), allowing to restrict the window of exposure of such devices to attacks against the running software and/or hosted data.