Comparativa experimental de vulnerabilidades en protocolos de red IoT durante actualizaciones de firmware basadas en OTA

Abstract

Abstract: Over the last five years, the proliferation of low-cost IoT devices has led manufacturers to prioritize functionality over firmware security. This thesis identifies vulnerabilities in HTTP, HTTPS, MQTT, MQTTS, and CoAP protocols during over-the-air (OTA) firmware updates, with the goal of proposing mitigation practices based on the quantification of risks and critical attack vectors. A quantitative-experimental approach was adopted using an isolated, ad-hoc laboratory environment, consisting of ESP32 and ESP8266 microcontrollers (for white-box analysis) and low-cost IP cameras (for black-box analysis). Vulnerabilities were identified through reverse engineering, on-the-fly troubleshooting, and the orchestration of attack vectors. The results indicate that CoAP without DTLS and HTTP without TLS account for the highest levels of exposure in microcontrollers, while the firmware of the IP cameras revealed plaintext credentials, exposed partition maps, memory chips with spoofed JEDEC identities, and poor information protection practices. It is concluded that a "security through obscurity" approach which is merely cosmetic prevails.