Secured-Mqtt: A Lightweight Security Framework for MQTT-based Systems

The Internet of Things (IoT) has become an integral part of modern life, interconnecting smart devices. As the connectivity increases, security is a concern. Message Queue Telemetry Transport (MQTT) is an accepted protocol in IoT because it uses a lightweight publisher-subscriber paradigm. The standard MQTT protocol does not provide security features to maintain the protocol as lightweight as possible. There may be situations where security features are required to defend against attacks. This paper proposes a unified framework called Secured-Mqtt, which handles multiple security features like the authentication of the publisher or subscriber without the need of any external entities, authorization of topics, lightweight message encryption, secure storage of messages within brokers, guaranteed ordered delivery of messages, and efficient message management in brokers. This comprehensive strategy guarantees scalability, effectiveness, and strong security that is suited to the unique requirements of IoT systems. The quantitative and qualitative comparisons with the state-of-the-art security schemes reveal that our framework consumes lower processing overhead (reduction up to 31.30%) while guaranteeing a high level of security.