Shattered Chain of Trust: Understanding Security Risks in Cross-Cloud IoT Access Delegation

Authors: 

Bin Yuan, School of Cyber Science and Engineering, Huazhong Univ. of Sci. & Tech., China; National Engineering Research Center for Big Data Technology and System, Cluster and Grid Computing Lab, Services Computing Technology and System Lab, and Big Data Security Engineering Research Center, Huazhong Univ. of Sci. & Tech., China; Shenzhen Huazhong University of Science and Technology Research Institute, China; Indiana University Bloomington; Yan Jia, School of Cyber Engineering, Xidian University, China; National Computer Network Intrusion Protection Center, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, China; Indiana University Bloomington; Luyi Xing, Dongfang Zhao, and XiaoFeng Wang, Indiana University Bloomington; Deqing Zou, School of Cyber Science and Engineering, Huazhong Univ. of Sci. & Tech., China; National Engineering Research Center for Big Data Technology and System, Cluster and Grid Computing Lab, Services Computing Technology and System Lab, and Big Data Security Engineering Research Center, Huazhong Univ. of Sci. & Tech., China; Hai Jin, School of Computer Science and Technology, Huazhong Univ. of Sci. & Tech., China; National Engineering Research Center for Big Data Technology and System, Cluster and Grid Computing Lab, Services Computing Technology and System Lab, and Big Data Security Engineering Research Center, Huazhong Univ. of Sci. & Tech., China; Yuqing Zhang, National Computer Network Intrusion Protection Center, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, China; School of Cyber Engineering, Xidian University, China

Abstract: 

IoT clouds facilitate the communication between IoT devices and users, and authorize users’ access to their devices. In this paradigm, an IoT device is usually managed under a particular IoT cloud designated by the device vendor, e.g., Philips bulbs are managed under Philips Hue cloud. Today’s mainstream IoT clouds also support device access delegation across different vendors (e.g., Philips Hue, LIFX, etc.) and cloud providers (e.g., Google, IFTTT, etc.): for example, Philips Hue and SmartThings clouds support to delegate device access to another cloud such as Google Home, so a user can manage multiple devices from different vendors all through Google Home. Serving this purpose are the IoT delegation mechanisms developed and utilized by IoT clouds, which we found are heterogeneous and ad-hoc in the wild, in the absence of a standardized delegation protocol suited for IoT environments. In this paper, we report the first systematic study on real-world IoT access delegation, based upon a semi-automatic verification tool we developed. Our study brought to light the pervasiveness of security risks in these delegation mechanisms, allowing the adversary (e.g., Airbnb tenants, former employees) to gain unauthorized access to the victim’s devices (e.g., smart locks) or impersonate the devices to trigger other devices. We confirmed the presence of critical security flaws in these mechanisms through end-to-end exploits on them, and further conducted a measurement study. Our research demonstrates the serious consequences of these exploits and the security implications of the practice today for building these mechanisms. We reported our findings to related parties, which acknowledged the problems. We further propose principles for developing more secure cross-cloud IoT delegation services, before a standardized solution can be widely deployed.

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BibTeX
@inproceedings {255328,
author = {Bin Yuan and Yan Jia and Luyi Xing and Dongfang Zhao and XiaoFeng Wang and Yuqing Zhang},
title = {Shattered Chain of Trust: Understanding Security Risks in {Cross-Cloud} {IoT} Access Delegation},
booktitle = {29th USENIX Security Symposium (USENIX Security 20)},
year = {2020},
isbn = {978-1-939133-17-5},
pages = {1183--1200},
url = {https://www.usenix.org/conference/usenixsecurity20/presentation/yuan},
publisher = {USENIX Association},
month = aug
}

Presentation Video