Intrusion detection systems for IoT-based smart environments: a survey

TLDR

Smart IoT environments aim to enhance human comfort and efficiency, yet their limited device capabilities and inherent vulnerabilities create significant security and privacy threats. This survey reviews IDSs tailored for IoT smart environments, outlining design considerations and future research directions. The authors systematically survey recent IoT‑specific IDS approaches, mapping their methods, features, and underlying mechanisms to the layers of the IoT architecture. The survey concludes that, although prior research exists, creating efficient, reliable, and robust IDSs for IoT smart environments remains an urgent challenge.

Abstract

One of the goals of smart environments is to improve the quality of human life in terms of comfort and efficiency. The Internet of Things (IoT) paradigm has recently evolved into a technology for building smart environments. Security and privacy are considered key issues in any real-world smart environment based on the IoT model. The security vulnerabilities in IoT-based systems create security threats that affect smart environment applications. Thus, there is a crucial need for intrusion detection systems (IDSs) designed for IoT environments to mitigate IoT-related security attacks that exploit some of these security vulnerabilities. Due to the limited computing and storage capabilities of IoT devices and the specific protocols used, conventional IDSs may not be an option for IoT environments. This article presents a comprehensive survey of the latest IDSs designed for the IoT model, with a focus on the corresponding methods, features, and mechanisms. This article also provides deep insight into the IoT architecture, emerging security vulnerabilities, and their relation to the layers of the IoT architecture. This work demonstrates that despite previous studies regarding the design and implementation of IDSs for the IoT paradigm, developing efficient, reliable and robust IDSs for IoT-based smart environments is still a crucial task. Key considerations for the development of such IDSs are introduced as a future outlook at the end of this survey.