Challenges of Multi-Factor Authentication for Securing Advanced IoT Applications

TLDR

The rapid expansion of smart devices in the A‑IoT ecosystem introduces new categories such as wearables, vehicles, and drones, but also raises the risk of unauthorized access while users expect seamless, user‑friendly authentication. The study proposes adopting multi‑factor authentication for A‑IoT to balance security and usability, and identifies open research questions. The authors review the strengths and weaknesses of various authentication methods and present tools for intelligently combining heterogeneous factors in challenging smart‑city environments.

Abstract

The unprecedented proliferation of smart devices together with novel communication, computing, and control technologies have paved the way for A-IoT. This development involves new categories of capable devices, such as high-end wearables, smart vehicles, and consumer drones aiming to enable efficient and collaborative utilization within the smart city paradigm. While massive deployments of these objects may enrich people's lives, unauthorized access to said equipment is potentially dangerous. Hence, highly secure human authentication mechanisms have to be designed. At the same time, human beings desire comfortable interaction with the devices they own on a daily basis, thus demanding authentication procedures to be seamless and user-friendly, mindful of contemporary urban dynamics. In response to these unique challenges, this work advocates for the adoption of multi-factor authentication for A-IoT, such that multiple heterogeneous methods - both well established and emerging - are combined intelligently to grant or deny access reliably. We thus discuss the pros and cons of various solutions as well as introduce tools to combine the authentication factors, with an emphasis on challenging smart city environments. We finally outline the open questions to shape future research efforts in this emerging field.