Fog-Based Internet of Things Security Issues

Abstract

Internet of things (IoT) environments are different in terms of architecture and platform type; fundamentally, some are cloud based, and some use traditional data centres to support all necessary computation and data handling. In cloud-based IoT, the core of the cloud where most of the computation takes place is usually located away from the ‘things’. Therefore, some researchers recently proposed using the fog-computing-based Internet of things by utilizing an adjacent layer of nodes (fog) to provide the essential computational support for devices to servers and from device to device. Hence, fog provides a more distributed environment that can provide support to IoT devices in the field. In this work, we analyse and compare different risks and advantages of using a cloud versus using a fog cloud and present discussion on these issues. We show that traditional cloud can be advantageous in some applications while fog can be better in other applications in terms of resistance to some types of security attacks, and each has certain strengths and weaknesses. Moreover, we preview the pros and cons of using fog in an IoT environment, and we preview some of the common attacks that can target the IoT environment and devices.