The National Cybersecurity Center of Excellence (NCCoE) has released the preliminary draft of NIST Special Publication (SP) 1800-36A: Executive Summary, Trusted Internet of Things (IoT) Device Network-Layer Onboarding and Lifecycle Management. The public comment period for the draft is open until February 3, 2023.
Provisioning network credentials to IoT devices in an untrusted manner leaves networks vulnerable to having unauthorized IoT devices connect to them. It also leaves IoT devices vulnerable to being taken over by unauthorized networks.
Instead, trusted, scalable, and automatic mechanisms are needed to safely manage IoT devices throughout their lifecycles, beginning with secure ways to provision devices with their network credentials—a process known as trusted network-layer onboarding.
Trusted network-layer onboarding, in combination with additional device security capabilities such as device attestation, application-layer onboarding, secure lifecycle management, and device intent enforcement could improve the security of networks and IoT devices.
This draft practice guide aims to demonstrate how organizations can protect both their IoT devices and their networks.
The NCCoE is collaborating with product and service providers to produce example implementations of trusted network-layer onboarding and capabilities that improve device and network security throughout the IoT-device lifecycle to achieve this.
