A model-driven approach to ensure trust in the IoT

Abstract

The Internet of Things (IoT) is a paradigm that permits smart entities to be interconnected anywhere and anyhow. IoT opens new opportunities but also rises new issues. In this dynamic environment, trust is useful to mitigate these issues. In fact, it is important that the smart entities could know and trust the other smart entities in order to collaborate with them. So far, there is a lack of research when considering trust through the whole System Development Life Cycle (SDLC) of a smart IoT entity. In this paper, we suggest a new approach that considers trust not only at the end of the SDLC but also at the start of it. More precisely, we explore the modeling phase proposing a model-driven approach extending UML and SysML considering trust and its related domains, such as security and privacy. We propose stereotypes for each diagram in order to give developers a way to represent trust elements in an effective way. Moreover, we propose two new diagrams that are very important for the IoT: a traceability diagram and a context diagram. This model-driven approach will help developers to model the smart IoT entities according to the requirements elicited in the previous phases of the SDLC. These models will be a fundamental input for the following and final phases of the SDLC.