Secure communication architecture for internet of things using smartphones and multi-access edge computing in environment monitoring

Protecting the environment from many threats has become a priority worldwide. The Internet of Things technologies enables the continuous monitoring of various parameters related to environment statuses, such as air quality and many others. In this paper, we propose a security architecture based on cellular networks and Multiple-access Edge Computing to collect sensors’ information in real time. In the proposed architecture, users will interface the Internet of Things devices using their smartphones. The smartphones can interact with the cellular network and the Internet of Things devices at the same time. This unique ability is leveraged to provide strong authentication and confidentiality in accessing the Internet of Things devices. Also in our architecture, we use gateways, as intermediate nodes that can interact with both the smartphones and the sensor nodes. Therefore, our architecture includes a revocation mechanism for captured gateways. We propose an architecture for the Internet of Things devices along with protocols that can be used to establish security.