Fog-based distributed trust and reputation management system for internet of things

Internet of things (IoT) provides connectivity between different smart devices. IoT systems aim to make data collection, and processing easier. Studies show that we can expect over 75 Billion IoT devices to be active by 2025. There is an increase in the interest in IoT systems, due to their ability to provide a better quality of services to end users. However, many critical challenges arise when deployed in the various applications. Among these issues are security, bandwidth, scalability, and network latency. Security is one of the most critical issues in IoT applications. Moreover, IoT devices can have different computational capabilities, and might be as simple as sensors nodes, or as complex as smart devices. As a result, it is not feasible to adopt standard security methods into IoT devices. In this paper, we propose a new solution that is suitable to IoT systems. The proposed solution is a Fog computing based trust and reputation sys-tem. Using Fog nodes, each IoT device evaluates trust towards other IoT devices and only proceed with an interaction with a device, if it meets a certain threshold trust value. This evaluation is necessary to elim-inate any malicious devices from affecting the system and quality of service. It will also help protect the system from many attacks such as Bad Mouthing, On Off, and Self Promoting attacks. Simulation results are provided to highlight the behavior of the system under these attacks. Moreover, the proposed solution is suitable for large-scale IoT systems. A comparison between the proposed model and the related works show that the proposed model outperforms the previous works in terms of suitability to IoT systems, and security.(c) 2021 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V. on behalf of King Saud University. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).

Automated summary

The Internet of Things (IoT) allows for connectivity between smart devices, but it also brings challenges in terms of security and performance. This paper proposes a Fog computing based trust and reputation system to address these challenges, by evaluating trust among IoT devices and protecting the system from malicious devices. The proposed solution outperforms previous works in terms of suitability to IoT systems and security.