VisIoT: A threat visualisation tool for IoT systems security

Abstract

Without doubt, the Internet of Things (IoT) is changing the way people and technology interact. Fuelled by recent advances in networking, communications, computation, software, and hardware technologies, IoT has stepped out of its infancy and is considered as the next breakthrough technology in transforming the Internet into a fully integrated Future Internet. However, realising a network of physical objects accessed through the Internet brings a potential threat in the shadow of the numerous benefits. The threat is “security”. Given that Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs) leverage the potential of IoT quite efficiently, this paper faces the challenge of security attention on a particular, yet broad, context of IP-enabled WSNs. In particular, it proposes a novel threat visualisation tool for such networks, called VisIoT. VisIoT is a human-interactive visual-based anomaly detection system that is capable of monitoring and promptly detecting several devastating forms of security attacks, including wormhole attacks, and Sybil attacks. Based on a rigorous, radial visualisation design, VisIoT may expose adversaries conducting one or multiple concurrent attacks against IP-enabled WSNs. The system's visual and anomaly detection efficacy in exposing complex security threats is demonstrated through a number of simulated attack scenarios.