Communication and Security in Machine-to-Machine Systems

Machine-to-Machine (M2M) systems and technologies currently constitute a hot topic in the field of Information and Communication Technology (ICT), and reflect an increasing need for technologies enabling applications in diverse areas, as well as interactions between continuously increasing numbers of connected devices. Important participants in making M2M systems widely used and applicable in numerous real-life scenarios are standardization organizations. They try to develop technical specifications that address the need for a common M2M service layer, which can be realized through various hardware and software implementations. This chapter presents current standards and architecture of M2M systems with the focus on communication and security issues, while also discussing current and future research efforts addressing important open issues. One of the main problems in the area is correlated with heterogeneous devices, which are using different technologies for communication. Because of communication technology diversity, research challenges are to uniquely identify devices, and to enable them to communicate securely. To tackle the former, previously proposed, a unique identifying scheme that enables device identification regardless of used technology is explained. Regarding the latter, we analyze how current standards and architecture of M2M systems define basic processes for secure connection establishment, and also discuss open issues, both in respect to aspects not covered by current standards and in relation to research proposals which may integrate with M2M systems in future versions of the standards.