Secure access and management of smart objects with SNMPv3

Smart Objects are ordinary objects that become part of a network architecture. This allows remote control and management of such devices, as well as the development of tightly integrated usage scenarios. Application security for such devices is a very important prerequisite. This paper presents implementation details of an SNMPv3 agent that offers secure control and management functionality through application layer encryption and authentication provided by the integrated User Based Security Model. Our prototypical implementation of a smart object uses a wireless network based on the IEEE 802.15.4 standard. The network layer is built on IPv6 which is transmitted over a 6LoWPAN adaptation layer. The smart object uses an 8-bit microcontroller from Atmel and runs the network-enabled operating system Contiki in version 2.6.