Sending securely UDP data using nRF9160 and authenticating received data on server end

[SilasV]

Hi 

After successfully testing nRF9160 SLM app. we plan to use nRF9160 with UDP and LwM2M protocol in our smart devices. We also have our private cloud server where all the data will be sent. Are there any guidelines / documents that we can follow?

Also following related questions:

1. How can we secure this setup? Of course the UDP messages will be in binary and encrypted.  

2. What is the way to avoid any third party messages / spoofing attacks hitting our server?   

thanks 

SilasV

[Didrik Rokhaug]

Hi,

Unfortunately, we do not have any documentation on how to set up the cloud side of things other than what you might find in some samples.

 

1. How can we secure this setup? Of course the UDP messages will be in binary and encrypted.  

 The LwM2M client supports DTLS. Other than that, I am not quite sure what you mean. What do you want to secure? Against what?

 

2. What is the way to avoid any third party messages / spoofing attacks hitting our server?   

 You can use DTLS, and the built in LwM2M mechanisms for verifying the client.

Best regards,

Didrik

[SilasV]

Hi Didrik

thank you for your reply! sure DTLS would be the right way.

At present we have a cloud server which implements HTTP integration - with device data coming from LoRa server. Now we are looking into providing NB IoT connectivity option for our smart devices using nRF9160 SLM, and UDP with LwM2M seems to be good option. 

Didrik Rokhaug said:

what you might find in some samples.

Can you provide link to such examples? 

If anyone has already implemented such a setup (UDP + LwM2M client-server), would you please comment and share your experience?

Thanks

[Didrik Rokhaug]

Documentation for samples:

https://developer.nordicsemi.com/nRF_Connect_SDK/doc/latest/nrf/samples.html#nrf9160-samples

The LwM2M client sample has some information on how to test the sample against the Leshan demo server. Other than that, I don't think there are much information relevant for this case, but you might find something I did not think of.

You can find the samples themselves in the nrf/samples/nrf9160 folder in your NCS installation.

[SilasV]

Hi Didrik

Thank you for all the information! I will work on this example and see how it goes. 

Thanks