NSF Award
1915780
The Internet of Things (IoT) interconnects everything including physical and virtual objects together through communication protocols. IoT has broad applications in digital healthcare, smart cities, transportation, agriculture, logistics and many other domains. The popularity of IoT has raised security and privacy concerns. This project seeks to improve IoT and privacy education through the development of laboratory module materials. This will include the development of an IoT platform with an industrial grade microcontroller (MCU) equipped with a crypto co-processor that is significantly lower-cost than existing platforms. This platform will allow for the development of a full-fledged IoT laboratory with hardware security modules at a cost that will make it affordable for students and institutions. The proposed IoT platform, teaching labs with both hardware and software, case studies and faculty development summer workshop will help improve curricula, student learning, and faculty collaboration and development at the participating institutes and partner intuitions, including Hispanic Serving Institutions and Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs). <br/><br/>This project is the first to use an industrial grade microcontroller and a crypto coprocessor to systematically develop teaching materials including hands-on labs and case studies on IoT security and privacy. The intellectual merit of the proposed project lies in its development of effective, engaging and novel teaching materials on IoT security. The deliverables include: a low-cost IoT development kit; the integrated development environment (IDE) to use the kit; multiple teaching labs covering the hardware security, secure key storage, secure boot, data security, network security, secure firmware upgrade and crypto co-processor; two case studies on building trustworthy air quality monitoring systems. The investigators will build awareness and competence to respond to a dynamic and rapidly developing array of cyber threats, especially those in the emerging IoT applications.<br/><br/>This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.
