ELE-128 - Internet of Things Networking and Security

3 credits

This course expands on the material covered in ELE-111, Internet of Things, and concentrates on building and managing secure networks of IoT devices. The “Things” of an IoT network are computing devices that collect sensor data or have actuators that affect the physical world. These are often known as cyber-physical systems. Examples of this evolving technology include energy & lighting controls for smart buildings, modern medical systems, automotive applications, security systems, environmental monitoring, and smart manufacturing (Industry 4.0)

The primary focus of this course is securely networking IoT devices into a system. Network topics include local and wide-area network principles, wired and wireless networking for IoT, and specialized communication such as Bluetooth, Zigbee, LoRa, and cellular networking. Topics will include the assessment of device security, attack surfaces, mitigating the threats created by insecure IoT devices, evaluating the security of the complete system, IoT security best practices, and techniques to securely integrate collections of “things”. Data is exchanged between the IoT devices in the field and websites or cloud servers such as Google Cloud, Amazon Web Services (AWS), or Microsoft Azure. The back end server forms the data collection center of the IoT network. Common protocols such as MQTT, REST, and CoAP as well as “Big Data” concepts are discussed. Information security and privacy are key concerns.

Prerequisite(s): ELE-111