Soteria: A Quantum-Based Device Attestation Technique for Internet of Things

The number of the Internet of Things (IoT) devices is growing at a rapid pace. Although the IoT has and continues to enable many new and exciting applications, recent studies show that cyberattacks on these Internet-connected low-powered devices are constantly increasing. One crucial security aspect for the IoT is device attestation, i.e., verifying the integrity of an IoT device's firmware/software. Existing techniques for IoT device attestation are either vulnerable to physical attacks or rely on unrealistic assumptions in terms of hardware requirements. To solve these issues, this article presents Soteria, a novel quantum-powered remote attestation technique using quantum physical unclonable functions (QPUFs) which offer enhanced security by leveraging the unique properties of quantum mechanics. Soteria also exploits quantum superposition to attest multiple memory locations in parallel, and thus, protecting it from roving malware. A security analysis of Soteria shows that it is secure against various types of attacks, while a performance analysis shows that it achieves its desired security properties while maintaining low-computational complexity.