Real-Time Dynamic Configuration of Firewall Rules for High-Speed IoT Networks

Abstract

The Internet of Things (IoT) is indispensable to modern society. It has entered the mainstream trend recently owing to its ability to read data and connect systems. IoT network platforms comprise various applications, leading to an influx of heavy and varying network traffic, allowing hackers to launch large-scale network attacks easily. When hackers gain control of an IoT device, they can initiate large-scale botnet attacks even through nonconventional computing devices such as cameras and routers. For example, Dyn, a domain name system provider, experienced large-scale distributed denial-of-service attacks on its IoT devices in 2016, causing companies, such as Twitter and Amazon, to suffer the consequences. Therefore, adapting to large-scale changes in network traffic in real-time is imperative. Firewalls are the foundation of device security. Therefore, when large-scale changes in network traffic occur, it is necessary to ensure the effectiveness of firewalls to reduce the probability of successful attacks. This study proposes a system that can adjust the order of firewall rules in real-time to monitor the traffic in high-speed IoT networks. When the system detects a sudden increase in the number of packets, the firewall rules are reordered and applied immediately to ensure security. Additionally, the original filtering effect of the firewall is maintained without being compromised. The test results indicate that high-speed network firewall performance has improved significantly with no abnormality detected in the filtering effect.