Mobile edge-enabled trust evaluation for the Internet of Things

Abstract

The Internet of Things (IoT), including wireless sensors, is one of the highly anticipated contributors to big data; therefore, avoiding misleading or forged data gathering in cases of sensitive and critical data through secure communication is vital. However, due to the relatively long distance between remote cloud and end nodes, cloud computing cannot provide effective and direct management for end nodes, which leads to security vulnerabilities. In this paper, we propose a novel trust evaluation model based on the trust transitivity on a chain assisted by mobile edge nodes, which is used to ensure the reliability of nodes in the Internet of Things and prevent malicious attacks. The mobile edge nodes offer a new solution to solve the above problems with relatively strong computing and storage abilities. Firstly, we design calculation approaches to different trust chains to measure their trust degrees. Secondly, we propose an improved Dijkstra’s algorithm for collecting trust information of sensor nodes by mobile edge nodes. Finally, the experimental results show that our trust model based on mobile edge nodes can evaluate sensor nodes more precisely and enhance the security on the Internet of Things.