Securing Fog Computing for Internet of Things Applications: Challenges and Solutions

TLDR

IoT connects billions of objects for applications such as environmental monitoring and home automation, yet it lacks low‑latency, location awareness, and geographic distribution, which fog computing extends to the network edge but introduces security and privacy risks. This survey reviews fog computing architecture and node roles, examines fog‑assisted IoT applications, discusses security and privacy threats and requirements, and identifies challenges and solutions. The authors perform a comprehensive review of fog computing features, node functions, application scenarios, security/privacy threats, and existing mitigation strategies. The study concludes by outlining several open research issues that need further attention to advance secure fog computing for IoT.

Abstract

Internet of Things (IoT) allows billions of physical objects to be connected to collect and exchange data for offering various applications, such as environmental monitoring, infrastructure management, and home automation. On the other hand, IoT has unsupported features (e.g., low latency, location awareness, and geographic distribution) that are critical for some IoT applications, including smart traffic lights, home energy management and augmented reality. To support these features, fog computing is integrated into IoT to extend computing, storage and networking resources to the network edge. Unfortunately, it is confronted with various security and privacy risks, which raise serious concerns towards users. In this survey, we review the architecture and features of fog computing and study critical roles of fog nodes, including real-time services, transient storage, data dissemination and decentralized computation. We also examine fog-assisted IoT applications based on different roles of fog nodes. Then, we present security and privacy threats towards IoT applications and discuss the security and privacy requirements in fog computing. Further, we demonstrate potential challenges to secure fog computing and review the state-of-the-art solutions used to address security and privacy issues in fog computing for IoT applications. Finally, by defining several open research issues, it is expected to draw more attention and efforts into this new architecture.