The federated nature of many crucial Internet of Things (IoT) applications introduces several challenges from a security perspective.To address critical challenges related to the authentication and secure communication of IoT devices operating in federated environments, we propose a new authentication and key exchange protocol based on a distributed ledger.Our protocol uses the unique configuration fingerprint of an IoT device and does not require secure storage in participating IoT devices.To validate the correctness of our design, we have performed formal modeling and verification of the security properties, using two different verification tools: Verifpal and the Tamarin prover.

Many high-impact Internet of Things (IoT) scenarios, such as humanitarian assistance and disaster relief, public safety, and military operations, require the establishment of a secure federated IoT environment.One of the critical challenges in the implementation of federated IoT solutions involves establishing a secure and authenticated key management mechanism.We propose and validate in a laboratory environment a novel federated IoT onboarding and key management solution.Our dl-mOT protocol integrates an efficient identity-based modified Okamoto-Tanaka (mOT) protocol with a distributed ledger in order to establish an anchor of trust between federation members.