Security model for the Open Messaging Interface (O-MI) Protocol

Abstract

The continuous improvements of computing, networking, storage and sensing technologies together with diffusion of “always-on” internet connectivity is boosting the development of the so-called Internet of Things (IoT).

The number of IoT vendors is also rapidly growing, providing solutions for all levels of the IoT stack. Despite the universal agreement on the need of a standardized technology stack (following the model of the world-wide-web), there is a proliferation of industry-driven domain specific standards that are hindering the development of a single IoT ecosystem. An attempt to solve this situation is the introduction of O-MI (Open Messaging Interface) and O-DF (Open Data Format), two domain independent standards published by the Open Group. The standards do not define any specific security model, and this thesis work tries to define suitable access control and authentication mechanisms that can regulate the rights of different principals and operations defined in these standards. First, an introduction of the O-MI and O-DF standards, including a comparison with existing standards is provided. Then, envisioned security model is presented, together with the implementation details of the plug-in module developed for the O-MI and O-DF reference implementation.