Implementation of a Collective Remote Attestation Framework for IoT Devices

Abstract

The mass adoption of Internet of Things devices necessitates robust security measures to ensure their integrity and prevent widespread disruption. Addressing this challenge in IoT networks, this work presents a lightweight Collective Remote Attestation framework designed for resource-constrained devices. It targets real-world adoption by leveraging the RISC-V Physical Memory Protection mechanism as the Hardware Root of Trust. The proposed decentralized protocol conducts mutual heterogeneous attestation with local verification of flash integrity. The use of nonces and HMAC ensures message freshness and authenticity, mitigating replay attacks. The framework is implemented using FreeRTOS and evaluated on the low-cost, readily available ESP32-C3 chip that supports the necessary security features. Performance testing confirmed CPU utilization scaling linearly with device count and attestation frequency. The framework provides a basis for future research and extensions on secure, decentralized trust mechanisms in resource-constrained IoT networks.