ACE Working Group                                          L. Seitz, Ed.
Internet-Draft                                       SICS Swedish ICT AB
Intended status: Informational                            S. Gerdes, Ed.
Expires: April 30, 2015                          Universitaet Bremen TZI
                                                             G. Selander
                                                                Ericsson
                                                                 M. Mani
                                                                   Itron
                                                                S. Kumar
                                                        Philips Research
                                                        October 27, 2014


                             ACE use cases
                      draft-seitz-ace-usecases-02

Abstract

   Constrained devices are nodes with limited processing power, storage
   space and transmission capacities.  These devices in many cases do
   not provide user interfaces and are often intended to interact
   without human intervention.

   This document comprises a collection of representative use cases for
   the application of authentication and authorization in constrained
   environments.  These use cases aim at identifying authorization
   problems that arise during the lifecylce of a constrained device and
   are intended to provide a guideline for developing a comprehensive
   authentication and access control solution for this class of
   scenarios.

   Where specific details are relevant, it is assumed that the devices
   use the Constrained Application Protocol (CoAP) as communication
   protocol, however most conclusions apply generally.

Status of This Memo

   This Internet-Draft is submitted in full conformance with the
   provisions of BCP 78 and BCP 79.

   Internet-Drafts are working documents of the Internet Engineering
   Task Force (IETF).  Note that other groups may also distribute
   working documents as Internet-Drafts.  The list of current Internet-
   Drafts is at http://datatracker.ietf.org/drafts/current/.







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   Internet-Drafts are draft documents valid for a maximum of six months
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   This Internet-Draft will expire on April 30, 2015.

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Table of Contents

   1.  Introduction  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   3
     1.1.  Terminology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   4
   2.  Use Cases . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   4
     2.1.  Container monitoring  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   4
       2.1.1.  Bananas for Munich  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   5
       2.1.2.  Authorization Problems Summary  . . . . . . . . . . .   5
     2.2.  Home Automation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   6
       2.2.1.  Controlling the Smart Home Infrastructure . . . . . .   6
       2.2.2.  Seamless Authorization  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   7
       2.2.3.  Remotely letting in a visitor . . . . . . . . . . . .   7
       2.2.4.  Authorization Problems Summary  . . . . . . . . . . .   7
     2.3.  Personal Health Monitoring  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   8
       2.3.1.  John and the heart rate monitor . . . . . . . . . . .   9
       2.3.2.  Authorization Problems Summary  . . . . . . . . . . .  10
     2.4.  Building Automation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  10
       2.4.1.  Device Lifecycle  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  11
       2.4.2.  Authorization Problems Summary  . . . . . . . . . . .  13
     2.5.  Smart Metering  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  13
       2.5.1.  Drive-by metering . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  14
       2.5.2.  Meshed Topology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  14
       2.5.3.  Advanced Metering Infrastructure  . . . . . . . . . .  14
       2.5.4.  Authorization Problems Summary  . . . . . . . . . . .  15
     2.6.  Sports and Entertainment  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  16
       2.6.1.  Dynamically Connecting Smart Sports Equipment . . . .  16



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       2.6.2.  Authorization Problems Summary  . . . . . . . . . . .  17
     2.7.  Industrial Control Systems  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  17
       2.7.1.  Oil Platform Control  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  17
       2.7.2.  Authorization Problems Summary  . . . . . . . . . . .  18
   3.  Security Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  18
     3.1.  Attacks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  19
     3.2.  Configuration of Access Permissions . . . . . . . . . . .  20
     3.3.  Design Considerations for Authorization Solutions . . . .  20
     3.4.  Proxies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  21
   4.  Privacy Considerations  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  21
   5.  Acknowledgments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  22
   6.  IANA Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  22
   7.  Informative References  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  22
   Authors' Addresses  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  23

1.  Introduction

   Constrained devices [RFC7228] are nodes with limited processing
   power, storage space and transmission capacities.  These devices are
   often battery-powered and in many cases do not provide user
   interfaces.

   Constrained devices benefit from being interconnected using Internet
   protocols.  However, due to the devices' limitations, commonly used
   security protocols are not always easily applicable.  As the devices
   are expected to be integrated in all aspects of everyday life, the
   application of adequate security mechanisms is required to prevent
   attackers from gaining control over data or functions important to
   our lives.

   This document comprises a collection of representative use cases for
   the application of authentication and authorization in constrained
   environments.  These use cases aim at identifying authorization
   problems that arise during the lifecycle of a constrained device.

   We assume that the communication between the devices is based on the
   Representational State Transfer (REST) architectural style, i.e. a
   device acts as a server that offers resources such as sensor data and
   actuators.  The resources can be accessed by clients, sometimes
   without human intervention (M2M).  In some situations the
   communication will happen through intermediaries (e.g. gateways,
   proxies).

   Where specific detail is necessary it is assumed that the devices
   communicate using CoAP [RFC7252], although most conclusions are
   generic.





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1.1.  Terminology

   Resource Server (RS): The constrained device which hosts resources
   the Client wants to access.

   Client (C): A device which wants to access a resource on the Resource
   Server.
   This could also be a constrained device.

   Resource Owner (RO): The subject who owns the resource and controls
   its access permissions.

2.  Use Cases

   This section lists use cases involving constrained devices with
   certain authorization problems to be solved.  Each use case first
   presents a general description of the application area, then one or
   more specific use cases, and finally a summary of the authorization-
   related problems device owners need to be solved.

   There are various reasons for assigning a function (client or
   resource server) to a device, e.g. which device initiates the
   conversation, how do devices find each other, etc.  The definition of
   the function of a device in a certain use case is not in scope of
   this document.  Readers should be aware that there might be reasons
   for each setting and that devices might even have different functions
   at different times.

2.1.  Container monitoring

   The ability of sensors to communicate environmental data wirelessly
   opens up new application areas.  The use of such sensor systems makes
   it possible to continuously track and transmit specific
   characteristics such as temperature, humidity and gas content during
   the transportation and storage of goods.

   The proper handling of the sensors in this scenario is not easy to
   accomplish.  They have to be associated to the appropriate pallet of
   the respective container.  Moreover, the goods and the corresponding
   sensors belong to specific customers.

   During the shipment to their destination the goods often pass stops
   where they are transloaded to other means of transportation, e.g.
   from ship transport to road transport.

   The transportation and storage of perishable goods is especially
   challenging since they have to be stored at a constant temperature
   and with proper ventilation.  Additionally, it is very important for



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   the vendors to be informed about irregularities in the temperature
   and ventilation of fruits to avoid the delivery of decomposed fruits
   to their customers.  The need for a constant monitoring of perishable
   goods has led to projects such as The Intelligent Container (http://
   www.intelligentcontainer.com).

2.1.1.  Bananas for Munich

   A fruit vendor grows bananas in Costa Rica for the German market.  It
   instructs a transport company to deliver the goods via ship to
   Rotterdam where they are picked up by trucks and transported to a
   ripening facility.  A Munich supermarket chain buys ripened bananas
   from the fruit vendor and transports them with their own company
   trucks.

   The fruit vendor's quality management wants to assure the quality of
   their products and thus equips the banana boxes with sensors.  The
   state of the goods is monitored consistently during shipment and
   ripening and abnormal sensor values are recorded.  Additionally, the
   sensor values are used to control the climate within the cargo
   containers.  Since a wrong sensor value leads to a wrong temperature
   and thus to spoiled goods, the integrity of the sensor data must be
   assured.

   Due to the high water content of the fruits, the propagation of radio
   waves is hindered, thus often inhibiting direct communication between
   nodes [Jedermann14].  Instead, messages are forwarded over multiple
   hops.  Those relaying nodes might belong to different owners.  The
   sensors in the banana boxes cannot always reach the internet during
   the journey.

   The personnel that transloads the goods must be able to locate the
   goods meant for a specific customer.  However the fruit vendor does
   not want to disclose sensor information pertaining to the condition
   of the goods to other companies and therefore wants to assure the
   confidentiality of this data.

   When the goods arrive at the supermarket in Munich, the supermarket
   conducts its own quality check.  If no anomalies occurred during the
   transport, the bananas are admitted for sale.

2.1.2.  Authorization Problems Summary

   o  U1.1 The device owner wants to grant different access rights to a
      resource to different parties.

   o  U1.2 The device owner wants to control which devices are allowed
      to present data to the device.



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   o  U1.3 The device owner wants to grant different access rights for
      different resources on a device.

   o  U1.4 The device owner requires the integrity of sensor data.

   o  U1.5 The device owner requires the confidentiality of sensor data.

   o  U1.6 The device owner is not always present at the time of access
      and cannot manually intervene in the authorization process.

   o  U1.7 The device owner wants to grant temporary access permissions
      to a party.

   o  U1.8 Messages between client and resource server might need to be
      forwarded over multiple hops.

   o  U1.9 The constrained device might not always be able to reach the
      internet.

2.2.  Home Automation

   Automation of the home has the potential to become a big future
   market for the Internet of Things.  A home automation system connects
   devices in a house to the Internet and thus makes them accessible and
   manageable remotely.  Such devices might control for example heating,
   ventilation, lighting, home entertainment or home security.

   Such a system needs to accommodate a number of regular users
   (inhabitants, close friends, cleaning personnel) as well as a
   heterogeneous group of dynamically varying users (visitors,
   repairmen, delivery men).

   As the users are not typically trained in security (or even computer
   use), the configuration must use secure default settings, and the
   interface must be well adapted to novice users.

2.2.1.  Controlling the Smart Home Infrastructure

   Jane and her husband George own a flat which is equipped with home
   automation devices such as HVAC and shutter control, and they have a
   motion sensor in the corridor which controls the light bulbs there.

   Jane and George can control the shutters and the temperature in each
   room using either wall-mounted touch panels or their smartphones.
   Since Jane and George both have a full-time job, they want to be able
   to change settings remotely, e.g. turn up the heating on a cold day
   if they will be home earlier than expected.




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   The couple does not want people in radio range of their devices, e.g.
   their neighbors, to be able to control them without authorization.
   Moreover, they don't want burglars to be able to deduce behavioral
   patterns from eavesdropping on the network.

2.2.2.  Seamless Authorization

   Jane buys a new light bulb for the corridor and integrates it into
   the home network (how she does that is not in scope).  George is not
   at home, but Jane wants him to be able to control the new device with
   his smart phone without the need for additional administration
   effort.

2.2.3.  Remotely letting in a visitor

   Jane and George have equipped their home with automated connected
   door-locks and an alarm system at the door and the windows.  The
   couple can control this system remotely.

   Jane and George have invited Jane's parents over for dinner, but are
   stuck in traffic and can not arrive in time, while Jane's parents who
   use the subway will arrive punctually.  Jane calls her parents and
   offers to let them in remotely, so they can make themselves
   comfortable while waiting.

   Jane's parents download an application that lets them communicate
   with Jane's door-lock and alarm system.  Then Jane sets temporary
   permissions that allow them to open the door, and shut down the alarm
   when they arrive.

   The security system controlling the door-locks and alarm system needs
   to be at least as secure as for a comparable unautomated home.

2.2.4.  Authorization Problems Summary

   o  U2.1 A home owner wants to spontaneously provision authorization
      means to visitors.

   o  U2.2 A home owner wants to spontaneously change the home's access
      control policies.

   o  U2.3 A home owner wants to apply different access rights for
      different users.

   o  U2.4 A home owner wants to apply context-based conditions
      (presence, time) to authorizations, and the devices need to be
      able to verify these conditions.




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   o  U2.5 The smart home devices need to be able to communicate with
      different control devices (e.g. wall-mounted touch panels,
      smartphones, electronic key fobs).

   o  U2.6 The access control configuration of the automated home needs
      to be secure by default.

   o  U2.7 The access control policies need to be easy to edit, even
      remotely and it needs to be easy to get access with correct
      authorization.

   o  U2.8 The owners of the automated home wants to prevent
      eavesdroppers form being able to deduce behavioral profiles from
      the home network.

   o  U2.9 Usability is particularly important in this scenario since
      administrative tasks such as installation, configuration and
      decommissioning of devices likely need to be performed by the home
      owners who in most cases have little knowledge of security.

   o  U2.10 Home Owners want their devices to seamlessly (and in some
      cases even unnoticeably) fulfill their purpose.  The
      administration effort needs to be kept at a minimum.

2.3.  Personal Health Monitoring

   The use of wearable health monitoring technology is expected to grow
   strongly, as a multitude of novel devices are developed and marketed.
   The need for open industry standards to ensure interoperability
   between products has lead to initiatives such as Continua Alliance
   (continuaalliance.org) and Personal Connected Health Alliance
   (pchalliance.org).  Personal health devices are typically battery
   driven, and located physically on the user.  They monitor some bodily
   function, such as e.g. temperature, blood pressure, or pulse.  They
   are connected to the Internet through an intermediary base-station,
   using wireless technologies.  Through this connection they report the
   monitored data to some entity, which may either be the user herself,
   or some medical personnel in charge of the user.

   Medical data has always been considered as very sensitive, and
   therefore requires good protection against unauthorized disclosure.
   A frequent, conflicting requirement is the capability for medical
   personnel to gain emergency access, even if no specific access rights
   exist.  As a result, the importance of secure audit logs increases in
   such scenarios.

   Since the users are not typically trained in security (or even
   computer use), the configuration must use secure default settings,



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   and the interface must be well adapted to novice users.  Parts of the
   system must operate with minimal maintenance.  Especially frequent
   changes of battery are unacceptable.

2.3.1.  John and the heart rate monitor

   John has a heart condition, that can result in sudden cardiac
   arrests.  He therefore uses a device called HeartGuard that monitors
   his heart rate and his position.  In case of a cardiac arrest it
   automatically sends an alarm to an emergency service, transmitting
   John's current location.  The HeartGuard also broadcasts emergency
   information in the neighborhood to notify doctors or people with
   certain skills who have been enrolled in an emergency program, e.g.
   people who got training in heart and lung rescue.  For doctors,
   medical information or diagnosis can be provided with the
   notification to improve immediate treatment.

   The device includes some smart logic, with which it identifies its
   owner John and allows him to configure the device's settings,
   including access control.
   This prevents situation where someone else wearing that device can
   act as the owner and mess up the access control and security
   settings.

   John can configure additional persons that get notified in an
   emergency, for example his daughter Jill.  Furthermore the device
   stores data on John's heart rate, which can later be accessed by a
   physician to assess the condition of John's heart.

   However John is a rather private person, and is worried that Jill
   might use HeartGuard to monitor his location while there is no
   emergency.  Furthermore he doesn't want his health insurance to get
   access to the HeartGuard data, or even to the fact that he is wearing
   a HeartGuard, since they might refuse to renew his insurance if they
   decided he was too big a risk for them.

   NOTE: Monitoring of some state parameter (e.g. an alarm button) and
   the position of a person also fits well into an elderly care service.
   This is particularly useful for people suffering from dementia, where
   the relatives or caregivers need to be notified of the whereabouts of
   the person under certain conditions.  In this case it is not the
   patient that decides about access.









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2.3.2.  Authorization Problems Summary

   o  U3.1 A device owner wants to pre-configure access rights to
      specific data for persons or groups, in the context of an
      emergency.

   o  U3.2 A device owner wants to selectively allow different persons
      or groups to access medical data.

   o  U3.3 A device owner wants to block access to specific persons in
      an otherwise allowed group (e.g. doctors in an emergency), if he
      mistrusts them.

   o  U3.4 The security measures could affect battery lifetime of the
      devices and should changes of battery are highly inconvenient.

   o  U3.5 Devices are often used with default access control settings.

   o  U3.6 Device users are often not trained in computer use and
      especially computer security.

   o  U3.7 Security mechanisms themselves could provide opportunities
      for denial of service attacks on the device.

   o  U3.8 The device provides a service that can be fatal for the
      device owner if it fails.  Accordingly, the device owner wants a
      security mechanism to provide a high level of security.

2.4.  Building Automation

   Buildings for commercial use such as shopping malls or office
   buildings nowadays are equipped increasingly with semi-automatic
   components to enhance the overall living quality and to save energy
   where possible.  This includes for example heating, ventilation and
   air condition (HVAC) as well as illumination and security systems
   such as fire alarms.

   Different areas of these buildings are often exclusively leased to
   different companies.  However they also share some of the common
   areas of the building.
   Accordingly, a company must be able to control the light and HVAC
   system of its own part of the building and must not have access to
   control rooms that belong to other companies.

   Some parts of the building automation system such as entrance
   illumination and fire alarm systems are controlled either by all
   parties together or by a service company.




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2.4.1.  Device Lifecycle

2.4.1.1.  Installation and Commissioning

   A building is hired out to different companies for office space.
   This building features various automated systems, such as a fire
   alarm system, which is triggered by several smoke detectors which are
   spread out across the building.  It also has automated HVAC, lighting
   and physical access control systems.

   A vacant area of the building has been recently leased to company A.
   Before moving into its new office, Company A wishes to replace the
   lighting with a more energy efficient and a better light quality
   luminaries.  They hire an installation and commissioning company C to
   redo the illumination.  Company C is instructed to integrate the new
   lighting devices, which may be from multiple manufacturers, into the
   existing lighting infrastructure of the building which includes
   presence sensors, switches, controllers etc.

   Company C gets the necessary authorization from the service company
   to interact with the existing Building and Lighting Management System
   (BLMS).  To prevent disturbance to other occupants of the building,
   Company C is provided authorization to perform the commissioning only
   during non-office hours and only to modify configuration on devices
   belonging to the domain of Company A's space.  After installation
   (wiring) of the new lighting devices, the commissioner adds the
   devices into the company A's lighting domain.

   Once the devices are in the correct domain, the commissioner
   authorizes the interaction rules between the new lighting devices and
   existing devices like presence sensors.  For this, the commissioner
   creates the authorization rules on the BLMS which define which lights
   form a group and which sensors /switches/controllers are allowed to
   control which groups.  These authorization rules may be context based
   like time of the day (office or non-office hours) or location of the
   handheld lighting controller etc.

2.4.1.2.  Operational

   Company A's staff move into the newly furnished office space.  Most
   lighting is controlled by presence sensors which control the lighting
   of specific group of lights based on the authorization rules in the
   BLMS.  Additionally employees are allowed to manually override the
   lighting brightness and color in their office by using the switches
   or handheld controllers.  Such changes are allowed only if the
   authorization rules exist in the BLMS.  For example lighting in the
   corridors may not be manually adjustable.




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   At the end of the day, lighting is dimmed down or switched off if no
   occupancy is detected even if manually overridden during the day.

   On a later date company B also moves into the same building, and
   shares some of the common spaces with company A.  On a really hot day
   James who works for company A turns on the air condition in his
   office.  Lucy who works for company B wants to make tea using an
   electric kettle.  After she turned it on she goes outside to talk to
   a colleague until the water is boiling.  Unfortunately, her kettle
   has a malfunction which causes overheating and results in a
   smoldering fire of the kettle's plastic case.

   Due to the smoke coming from the kettle the fire alarm is triggered.
   Alarm sirens throughout the building are switched on simultaneously
   (using a broadcastor multicast) to alert the staff of both companies.
   Additionally, the ventilation system of the whole building is closed
   off to prevent the smoke from spreading and to withdraw oxygen from
   the fire.  The smoke cannot get into James' office although he turned
   on his air condition because the fire alarm overrides the manual
   setting by sending commands (broadcast or multicast) to switch off
   all the air conditioning.

   The fire department is notified of the fire automatically and arrives
   within a short time.  After inspecting the damage and extinguishing
   the smoldering fire a fire fighter resets the fire alarm because only
   the fire department is authorized to do that.

2.4.1.3.  Maintenance

   Company A's staff are annoyed that the lights switch off too often in
   their rooms if they work silently in front of their computer.
   Company A notifies the commissioning Company C about the issue and
   asks them to increase the delay before lights switch off.

   Company C again gets the necessary authorization from the service
   company to interact with the BLMS.  The commissioner's tool gets the
   necessary authorization from BMLS to send a configuration change to
   all lighting devices in Company A's offices to increase their delay
   before they switch off.

2.4.1.4.  Decommissioning

   Company A has noticed that the handheld controllers are often
   misplaced and hard to find when needed.  So most of the time staff
   use the existing wall switches for manual control.  Company A decides
   it would be better to completely remove handheld controllers and asks
   Company C to decommission them from the lighting system.




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   Company C again gets the necessary authorization from the service
   company to interact with the BLMS.  The commissioner now deletes any
   rules that allowed handheld controllers authorization to control the
   lighting.  Additionally the commissioner instructs the BLMS to push
   these new rules to prevent cached rules at the end devices from being
   used.

2.4.2.  Authorization Problems Summary

   o  U4.1 Device owners want to be able to add a new device to their
      administrative domain (commissioning).

   o  U4.2 Device owners want to be able to integrate a device that
      formerly belonged to a different administrative domain to their
      own administrative domain (handover).

   o  U4.3 Device owner want to be able to remove a device from their
      administrative domain (decomissioning).

   o  U4.4 Device owners want to be able to delegate selected
      administration tasks for their devices to others.

   o  U4.5 The device owner wants to be able to define context-based
      Authorization rules.

   o  U4.6 The device owner wants to be able to revoke granted
      permissions and delegations.

   o  U4.7 The device owner wants to allow only authorized access to
      device resources (default deny).

   o  U4.8 The device owner wants to be able to authorize a device to
      control several devices at the same time using a multicast
      protocol.

   o  U4.9 Device owners want to be able to interconnect their own
      subsystems with those from a different operational domain while
      keeping the control over the authorizations (e.g. granting and
      revoking permissions) for their devices.

2.5.  Smart Metering

   Automated measuring of customer consumption is an established
   technology for electricity, water, and gas providers.  Increasingly
   these systems also feature networking capability to allow for remote
   management.  Such systems are in use for commercial, industrial and
   residential customers and require a certain level of security, in
   order to avoid economic loss to the providers, vulnerability of the



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   distribution system, as well as disruption of services for the
   customers.

   The smart metering equipment for gas and water solutions is battery
   driven and communication should be used sparingly due to battery
   consumption.  Therefore the types of meters sleep most of the time,
   and only wake up every minute/hour to check for incoming
   instructions.  Furthermore they wake up a few times a day (based on
   their configuration) to upload their measured metering data.

   Different networking topologies exist for smart metering solutions.
   Based on environment, regulatory rules and expected cost, one or a
   mixture of these topologies may be deployed to collect the metering
   information.  Drive-By metering is one of the most current solutions
   deployed for collection of gas and water meters.

2.5.1.  Drive-by metering

   A service operator offers smart metering infrastructures and related
   services to various utility companies.  Among these is a water
   provider, who in turn supplies several residential complexes in a
   city.  The smart meters are installed in the end customer's homes to
   measure water consumption and thus generate billing data for the
   utility company.  The meters do so by sending data to a base station.
   Several base stations are installed around the city to collect the
   metering data.  However in the denser urban areas, the base stations
   would have to be installed very close to the meters.  This would
   require a high number of base stations and expose this more expensive
   equipment to manipulation or sabotage.  The service operator has
   therefore chosen another approach, which is to drive around with a
   mobile base-station and let the meters connect to that in regular
   intervals in order to gather metering data.

2.5.2.  Meshed Topology

   In another deployment, the water meters are installed in a building
   that already has power meters installed, the latter are mains
   powered, and are therefore not subject to the same power saving
   restrictions.  The water meters can therefore use the power meters as
   proxies, in order to achieve better connectivity.  This requires the
   security measures on the water meters to work through intermediaries.

2.5.3.  Advanced Metering Infrastructure

   A utility company is updating its old utility distribution network
   with advanced meters and new communication systems, known as an
   Advanced Metering Infrastructure (AMI).  AMI refers to a system that
   measures, collects and analyzes usage, and interacts with metering



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   devices such as electricity meters, gas meters, heat meters, and
   water meters, through various communication media either on request
   (on-demand) or on pre-defined schedules.  Based on this technology,
   new services make it possible for consumers to control their utility
   consumption and reduce costs by supporting new tariff models from
   utility companies, and more accurate and timely billing.

   The technical solution is based on levels of data aggregation between
   smart meters located at the consumer premises and the Meter Data
   Management (MDM) system located at the utility company.  Two possible
   intermediate levels are:

   o  Head-End System (HES) which is hardware and software that receives
      the stream of meter data and exposes an interface to the MDM.

   o  Data Collection (DC) units located in a local network
      communicating with a number of smart meters and with a backhaul
      interface communicating with the HES, e.g. using cellular
      communication.

   For reasons of efficiency and cost end-to-end connectivity is not
   always feasible, so metering data is stored in batches in DC for some
   time before being forwarded to the HES, and in turn accessed by the
   MDM.  The HES and the DC units may be operated by a third party
   service operator on behalf of the utility company.  One
   responsibility of the service operator is to make sure that meter
   readings are performed and delivered to the HES.  An example of a
   Service Level Agreement between the service operator and the utility
   company is e.g.  "at least 95 % of the meters have readings recorded
   during the last 72 hours".

2.5.4.  Authorization Problems Summary

   o  U5.1 Devices are installed in hostile environments where they are
      physically accessible by attackers.  Device owners want to make
      sure that an attacker cannot use a captured device to attack other
      parts of their infrastructure.

   o  U5.2 Device owners want to restrict which entities are allowed to
      write data to the devices and thus ensure the integrity of the
      data on their devices.

   o  U5.3 The device owner wants to control which entities are allowed
      to read data on the devices and protect such data in transfer.

   o  U5.4 The devices may have intermittent Internet connectivity.





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   o  U5.5 The device owner is not always present at the time of access
      and cannot manually intervene in the authorization process.

   o  U5.6 When authorization policies are updated it is impossible, or
      at least very inefficient to contact all affected devices
      directly.

   o  U5.7 Messages between a client and the device may need to be
      stored and forwarded over multiple nodes.

2.6.  Sports and Entertainment

   In the area of leisure time activities, applications can benefit from
   the small size and weight of constrained devices.  Sensors and
   actuators with various functionalities can be integrated into fitness
   equipment, games and even clothes.  Owners can carry their devices
   around with them at all times.

   Usability is especially important in this area since owners will
   often want to spontaneously interconnect their devices with others.
   Therefore the configuration of access permissions must be simple and
   fast and not require much effort at the time of access (preferably
   none at all).

   The required level of security will in most cases be low since
   security breaches will likely have less severe consequences.  The
   continuous monitoring of data might however enable an attacker to
   create behavioral or movement profiles.  Moreover, the aggregation of
   data can seriously increase the impact on the privacy of device
   owners.

2.6.1.  Dynamically Connecting Smart Sports Equipment

   Jody is a an enthusiastic runner.  To keep track of her training
   progress, she has smart running shoes that measure the pressure at
   various points beneath her feet to count her steps, detect
   irregularities in her stride and help her to improve her posture and
   running style.  On a sunny afternoon, she goes to the Finnbahn track
   near her home to work out.  She meets her friend Lynn who shows her
   the smart fitness watch she bought a few days ago.  The watch can
   measure the wearer's pulse, show speed and distance, and keep track
   of the configured training program.  The girls detect that the watch
   can be connected with Jody's shoes and then can additionally display
   the information the shoes provide.

   Jody asks Lynn to let her try the watch and lend it to her for the
   afternoon.  Lynn agrees but doesn't want Jody to access her training
   plan.  She configures the access policies for the watch so that



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   Jody's shoes are allowed to access the display and measuring features
   but cannot read or add training data.  Jody's shoes connect to Lynn's
   watch after only a press of a button because Jody already configured
   access rights for devices that belong to Lynn a while ago.

   After an hour, Jody gives the watch back and both girls terminate the
   connection between their devices.

2.6.2.  Authorization Problems Summary

   o  U6.1 The owner of a device wants to be able to grant access rights
      dynamically when needed.

   o  U6.2 The owner wants the configuration of access rights to work
      with very little effort.

   o  U6.3 The device owner wants to be able to preconfigure access
      policies that grant certain access permissions to devices with
      certain attributes (e.g. devices of a certain user) without
      additional configuration effort at the time of access.

   o  U6.4 Device owners wants to protect the confidentiality of their
      data for privacy reasons.

   o  U6.5 Devices might not have an Internet connection at the time of
      access.

2.7.  Industrial Control Systems

   Industrial control systems (ICS) and especially supervisory control
   and data acquisition systems (SCADA) use a multitude of sensors and
   actuators in order to monitor and control industrial processes in the
   physical world.  Example processes include manufacturing, power
   generation, and refining of raw materials.

   Since the advent of the Stuxnet worm it has become obvious to the
   general public how vulnerable this kind of systems are, especially
   when connected to the Internet.  The severity of these
   vulnerabilities are exacerbated by the fact that many ICS are used to
   control critical public infrastructure, such as power, water
   treatment of traffic control.  Nevertheless the economical advantages
   of connecting such systems to the Internet can be significant if
   appropriate security measures are put in place.

2.7.1.  Oil Platform Control

   An oil platform uses an industrical control system to monitor data
   and control equipment.  The purpose of this system is to gather and



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   process data from a large number of sensors, and control actuators
   such as valves and switches to steer the oil extraction process on
   the platform.  Raw data, alarms, reports and other information are
   also available to the operators, who can intervene with manual
   commands.  Many of the sensors are connected to the controlling units
   by direct wire, but the operator is slowly replacing these units by
   wireless ones, since this makes maintenance easier.

   The controlling units are connected to the Internet, to allow for
   remote administration, since it is expensive and inconvenient to fly
   in a technician to the platform.

   The main interest of the operator is to ensure the integrity of
   control messages and sensor readings.  The access to some resources
   needs to be restricted to certain clients, e.g. the operator wants
   wireless actuators only to accept commands by authorized control
   units.

   The owner of the platform also wants to collect auditing information
   for liability reasons.

2.7.2.  Authorization Problems Summary

   o  U7.1 The device owner wants to ensure that only authorized clients
      can read data from sensors and sent commands to actuators.

   o  U7.2 The device owner wants to ensure that data coming from
      sensors and commands sent to actuators are authentic.

   o  U7.3 Some devices do not have direct Internet connection.

   o  U7.4 Some devices have wired connection while other use wireless.

   o  U7.5 The execution of unauthorized commands in an ICS can lead to
      significant financial damage, and threaten the availability of
      critical infrastructure services.  Accordingly, the device owner
      wants a security solution that provides a very high level of
      security.

3.  Security Considerations

   As the use cases listed in this document demonstrate, constrained
   devices are used in various application areas.  The appeal of these
   devices is that they are small and inexpensive.  That makes it easy
   to integrate them into many aspects of everyday life.  Therefore, the
   devices will be entrusted with vast amounts of valuable data or even
   control functions, that need to be protected from unauthorized
   access.



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   Moreover, the aggregation of data must be considered: attackers might
   not only collect data from a single device but from many devices,
   thus increasing the potential damage.

   Not only the data on the constrained devices themselves is
   threatened, the devices might also be abused as an intrusion point to
   infiltrate a network.  Once an attacker gained control over the
   device, it can be used to attack other devices as well.  Due to their
   limited capabilities, constrained devices appear as the weakest link
   in the network and hence pose an attractive target for attackers.

   This section summarizes the security problems highlighted by the use
   cases above and provides guidelines for the design of protocols for
   authentication and authorization in constrained RESTful environments.

3.1.  Attacks

   This document lists security problems that owners of constrained
   devices want to solve.  Further analysis of attack scenarios is not
   in scope of the document.  However, there are attacks that must be
   considered by solution developers.

   Because of the expected large number of devices and their ubiquity,
   constrained devices increase the danger from Pervasive Monitoring
   [RFC7258] attacks.

   As some of the use cases indicate, constrained devices may be
   installed in hostile environments where they are physically
   accessible (see Section 2.5).  Protection from physical attacks is
   not in the scope of ACE, but should be kept in mind by developers of
   authorization solutions.

   Denial of service (DoS) attacks threaten the availability of services
   a device provides.  E.g., an attacker can induce a device to perform
   steps of a heavy weight security protocol (e.g. Datagram Transport
   Layer Security (DTLS) [RFC6347]) before authentication and
   authorization can be verified, thus exhausting the device's system
   resources.  This leads to a temporary or - e.g. if the batteries are
   drained - permanent failure of the service.  For some services of
   constrained devices, availability is especially important (see
   Section 2.3).  Because of their limitations, constrained devices are
   especially vulnerable to denial of service attacks.  Solution
   designers must be particularly careful to consider these limitations
   in every part of the protocol.  This includes:

   o  Battery usage

   o  Number of message exchanges required by security measures



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   o  Size of data that is transmitted (e.g. authentication and access
      control data)

   o  Size of code required to run the protocol

   o  Size of RAM memory and stack required to run the protocol

   Another category of attacks that needs to be considered by solution
   developers is session interception and hijacking.

3.2.  Configuration of Access Permissions

   o  The access control policies of the Resource Owner need to be
      enforced (all use cases): The access control policies set by the
      Resource Owner need to be provisioned to the device that enforces
      the authorization and applied to every incoming request.

   o  A single resource might have different access rights for different
      requesting entities (all use cases).

      Rationale: In some cases different types of users need different
      access rights, as opposed to a binary approach where the same
      access permissions are granted to all authenticated users.

   o  A device might host several resources where each resource has its
      own access control policy (all use cases).

   o  The device that makes the policy decisions should be able to
      evaluate context-based permissions such as location or time of
      access (see e.g. Section 2.2, Section 2.3, Section 2.4).  Access
      may depend on local conditions, e.g. access to health data in an
      emergency.  The device that makes the policy decisions should be
      able to take such conditions into account.

3.3.  Design Considerations for Authorization Solutions

   o  Devices need to be enabled to enforce the owner's authorization
      policies without the owner's intervention at the time of the
      access request (see e.g. Section 2.1, Section 2.2, Section 2.4,
      Section 2.5).

   o  Authorization solutions need to consider that constrained devices
      might not have internet access at the time of the access request
      (see e.g. Section 2.1, Section 2.3, Section 2.5, Section 2.6).

   o  It should be possible to update access control policies without
      manually re-provisioning individual devices (see e.g. Section 2.2,
      Section 2.3, Section 2.5, Section 2.6).



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      Rationale: Peers can change rapidly which makes manual re-
      provisioning unreasonably expensive.

   o  Owners might define authorization policies for a large number of
      devices that might only have intermittent connectivity.
      Distributing policy updates to every device for every update might
      not be a feasible solution.

   o  It must be possible to dynamically revoke authorizations (see e.g.
      Section 2.4).

   o  The authentication and access control protocol can put undue
      burden on the constrained resources of a device participating in
      the protocol.  An authorization solutions must take the
      limitations of the constrained devices into account (see also
      Section 3.1).

   o  Secure default settings are needed for the initial state of the
      authentication and authorization protocols (all use cases).

      Rationale: Many attacks exploit insecure default settings, and
      experience shows that default settings are frequently left
      unchanged by the end users.

   o  Access to resources on other devices should only be permitted if a
      rule exists that explicitly allows this access (default deny).

   o  Usability is important for all use cases.  The configuration of
      authorization policies as well as the gaining access to devices
      must be simple for the users of the devices.  Special care needs
      to be taken for home scenarios where access control policies have
      to be configured by users that are typically not trained in
      security (see Section 2.2, Section 2.6).

3.4.  Proxies

   In some cases, the traffic between Client and Resource Server might
   go through intermediary nodes (e.g. proxies, gateways).  This might
   affect the function or the security model of authentication and
   access control protocols e.g. end-to-end security between Client and
   Resource Server with DTLS might not be possible (see Section 2.5).

4.  Privacy Considerations

   Many of the devices that are in focus of this document register data
   from the physical world (sensors) or affect processes in the physical
   world (actuators), which may involve data or processes belonging to
   individuals.  To make matters worse the sensor data may be recorded



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   continuously thus allowing to gather significant information about an
   individual subject to the sensor readings.  Therefore privacy
   protection is especially important, and Authentication and Access
   control are important tools for this, since they make it possible to
   control who gets access to private data.

   Privacy protection can also be weighted in when evaluating the need
   for end-to-end confidentiality, since otherwise intermediary nodes
   will learn the content of potentially sensitive messages sent between
   a client and a resource server and thereby endanger the privacy of
   the individual that may be subject of this data.

   In some cases, even the possession of a certain type of device can be
   confidential, e.g. owners might not want to others to know that they
   are wearing a certain medical device (see Section 2.3).

   The personal health monitoring use case (see Section 2.3) indicates
   the need for secure audit logs which impose specific requirements on
   a solution.  Auditing is not in the scope of ACE.  However, if an
   authorization solution provides means for audit logs, it must
   consider the impact of logged data for the privacy of the owner and
   other parties involved.
   Suitable measures for protecting and purging the logs must be taken
   during operation, maintenance and decommissioning of the device.

5.  Acknowledgments

   The authors would like to thank Olaf Bergmann, Sumit Singhal, John
   Mattson, Mohit Sethi, Carsten Bormann, Martin Murillo, Corinna
   Schmitt, Hannes Tschofenig, Erik Wahlstroem, and Andreas Backman for
   reviewing and/or contributing to the document.  Also, thanks to
   Markus Becker, Thomas Poetsch and Koojana Kuladinithi for their input
   on the container monitoring use case.

6.  IANA Considerations

   This document has no IANA actions.

7.  Informative References

   [Jedermann14]
              Jedermann, R., Poetsch, T., and C. LLoyd, "Communication
              techniques and challenges for wireless food quality
              monitoring", Philosophical Transactions of the Royal
              Society A Mathematical, Physical and Engineering Sciences,
              May 2014.





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   [RFC6347]  Rescorla, E. and N. Modadugu, "Datagram Transport Layer
              Security Version 1.2", RFC 6347, January 2012.

   [RFC7228]  Bormann, C., Ersue, M., and A. Keranen, "Terminology for
              Constrained-Node Networks", RFC 7228, May 2014.

   [RFC7252]  Shelby, Z., Hartke, K., and C. Bormann, "The Constrained
              Application Protocol (CoAP)", RFC 7252, June 2014.

   [RFC7258]  Farrell, S. and H. Tschofenig, "Pervasive Monitoring Is an
              Attack", BCP 188, RFC 7258, May 2014.

Authors' Addresses

   Ludwig Seitz (editor)
   SICS Swedish ICT AB
   Scheelevaegen 17
   Lund  223 70
   Sweden

   Email: ludwig@sics.se


   Stefanie Gerdes (editor)
   Universitaet Bremen TZI
   Postfach 330440
   Bremen  28359
   Germany

   Phone: +49-421-218-63906
   Email: gerdes@tzi.org


   Goeran Selander
   Ericsson
   Faroegatan 6
   Kista  164 80
   Sweden

   Email: goran.selander@ericsson.com











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   Mehdi Mani
   Itron
   52, rue Camille Desmoulins
   Issy-les-Moulineaux  92130
   France

   Email: Mehdi.Mani@itron.com


   Sandeep S. Kumar
   Philips Research
   High Tech Campus
   Eindhoven  5656 AA
   The Netherlands

   Email: sandeep.kumar@philips.com



































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