Is Your Kettle Smarter Than a Hacker? A Scalable Tool for Assessing Replay Attack Vulnerabilities on Consumer IoT Devices

Fuente: arXiv
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Main Authors: Lazzaro, Sara, De Angelis, Vincenzo, Mandalari, Anna Maria, Buccafurri, Francesco
Format: Preprint
Published: 2024
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author Lazzaro, Sara
De Angelis, Vincenzo
Mandalari, Anna Maria
Buccafurri, Francesco
author_facet Lazzaro, Sara
De Angelis, Vincenzo
Mandalari, Anna Maria
Buccafurri, Francesco
contents Consumer Internet of Things (IoT) devices often leverage the local network to communicate with the corresponding companion app or other devices. This has benefits in terms of efficiency since it offloads the cloud. ENISA and NIST security guidelines underscore the importance of enabling default local communication for safety and reliability. Indeed, an IoT device should continue to function in case the cloud connection is not available. While the security of cloud-device connections is typically strengthened through the usage of standard protocols, local connectivity security is frequently overlooked. Neglecting the security of local communication opens doors to various threats, including replay attacks. In this paper, we investigate this class of attacks by designing a systematic methodology for automatically testing IoT devices vulnerability to replay attacks. Specifically, we propose a tool, named REPLIOT, able to test whether a replay attack is successful or not, without prior knowledge of the target devices. We perform thousands of automated experiments using popular commercial devices spanning various vendors and categories. Notably, our study reveals that among these devices, 51% of them do not support local connectivity, thus they are not compliant with the reliability and safety requirements of the ENISA/NIST guidelines. We find that 75% of the remaining devices are vulnerable to replay attacks with REPLIOT having a detection accuracy of 0.98-1. Finally, we investigate the possible causes of this vulnerability, discussing possible mitigation strategies.
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id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2401_12184
institution arXiv
publishDate 2024
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Is Your Kettle Smarter Than a Hacker? A Scalable Tool for Assessing Replay Attack Vulnerabilities on Consumer IoT Devices
Lazzaro, Sara
De Angelis, Vincenzo
Mandalari, Anna Maria
Buccafurri, Francesco
Cryptography and Security
Consumer Internet of Things (IoT) devices often leverage the local network to communicate with the corresponding companion app or other devices. This has benefits in terms of efficiency since it offloads the cloud. ENISA and NIST security guidelines underscore the importance of enabling default local communication for safety and reliability. Indeed, an IoT device should continue to function in case the cloud connection is not available. While the security of cloud-device connections is typically strengthened through the usage of standard protocols, local connectivity security is frequently overlooked. Neglecting the security of local communication opens doors to various threats, including replay attacks. In this paper, we investigate this class of attacks by designing a systematic methodology for automatically testing IoT devices vulnerability to replay attacks. Specifically, we propose a tool, named REPLIOT, able to test whether a replay attack is successful or not, without prior knowledge of the target devices. We perform thousands of automated experiments using popular commercial devices spanning various vendors and categories. Notably, our study reveals that among these devices, 51% of them do not support local connectivity, thus they are not compliant with the reliability and safety requirements of the ENISA/NIST guidelines. We find that 75% of the remaining devices are vulnerable to replay attacks with REPLIOT having a detection accuracy of 0.98-1. Finally, we investigate the possible causes of this vulnerability, discussing possible mitigation strategies.
title Is Your Kettle Smarter Than a Hacker? A Scalable Tool for Assessing Replay Attack Vulnerabilities on Consumer IoT Devices
topic Cryptography and Security
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2401.12184