We are more excited to announce the fresh new update of MQTT Broker, MQTTRoute 3.1. The new version of MQTT Broker adds additional & custom security options / security extensions for secured communication & data transfer over MQTT connection. Security is an essential concern for any IoT solutions/applications. No matter what, enterprises have a keen insight into the security of the implementation as they need to prevent themselves from getting attacked by hackers/intruders. Hence, we thought of providing such full-fledged security options. We are adding custom authentication functionality to our MQTT Broker with the support of integrating IAM tools to authorize and have instant control / power over on their clients. Here is a detailed look at the security extensions of MQTT Broker.

Need for Centralized Authentication

In day to day life, whatever people use or designate is getting connected to the internet. For a full-fledged enterprise security, each & every port of entry must be supervised wholly for client connections, permissions & for secured data communications. This is to restrict the entry of hackers. Besides security, the cyclical/periodic maintenance tasks like asset monitoring, updating of firmware, provisioning or reprovisioning needs to be integrated. Hence it is necessary to bring all users into one common platform. This obligates the need for connecting the clients, sensors and everything to the central identity management of the organization. Centralized identity management means everything takes place in one environment. This is more or less like the user can sign into a single environment to access all the applications and tools. Hence, provisioning, de provisioning everything happens and are managed in one place with centralized ID & access management. Also, SAML single sign-on permits users to create one single password to ingress all of their applications & stuff. It removes the difficulty of creating & recollecting multiple passwords. Hence, we have added custom hooks into MQTT Broker to customize authentication for identity access management.

MQTT Broker Inbuilt MQTT Authentication

With the new update, MQTTRoute comes with an inbuilt custom plugin to customize/extend the authentication mechanism as per the need. We know that how important identity management is nowadays in terms of security for enterprises & businesses. To bring that centralized management into one common platform we have enabled a custom authentication functionality into the MQTT Broker which helps users to integrate IAM. IAM (Identity Access Management) enables enterprises/organization to control user access to critical information within an organization. Bevywise MQTT Broker can be used to build large scale IoT applications & solutions for multiple customers & for enterprises. With the help of custom authentication hooks, IAM can be integrated into the MQTT Broker. Now, IAM will supersede the built-in MQTT authentication & authorization to enable a gentle functioning with an enterprise IoT systems & its management.

Bundled HTTP Authentication

HTTP furnishes an extensive structure for authorization & access control. HTTP authentication is about restricting unauthorized users with the HTTP schema. It is a challenge response mechanism where the server will challenge a client request & the MQTT client will respond with the authentication details (User ID & Password credentials) in an authorization header. The User ID defines the identity of the client & the password authenticates the client as the correct possessor of that identity.

Here is how the challenge & response flow runs :

When the client makes a request & server expects authentication information, the server responds with a 401 (unauthorized) status code which provides the reason for authentication error along with the WWW-authenticate response header. The client will call for a user ID (client ID) & password from the user to manage the response from the server. Once the client acquires a user ID & password, it will send back the initial request with an authorization header. On the other hand, the client can send the authorization header when it makes its original request, and this header might be accepted by the server, avoiding the challenge and response process.

MQTTRoute now supports HTTP authentication that it initiates the request query permission & processes the authentication request through the returned HTTP response status.

MQTT Broker & Security Options

Bevywise MQTTRoute by default provides an option to enable encrypted data transmission for better MQTT data security. Such options can be enabled with just a few configuration changes. With regards to security in Enterprise MQTT Broker, identity, authentication, authorization, and encryption should be taken into account to protect your data. Bevywise MQTT Broker supporting MQTT protocol, provides Multiple MQTT Authentication, Encrypted MQTT message transfer with TLS/SSL  certificates, Authentication with X.509, Using username and password form of authentication method, Authorization with ACL & RBAC to make applications publish and subscribe only to their topics & more. It works with all standard SSL / TLS certificates and runs with a self-signed client certificate.  Moreover, you can also disable authentication as well, if you are running / in-action with the MQTT broker in a close environment and do not want to weigh down the system. Though we provide full-fledged security with our default security options, we want our customers/users to power over their clients with custom authentication.

To conclude, the new update of MQTT Broker provides custom client authentication functionality which enables you to integrate IAM tools for secured management & control of the clients. 

Feel free to write to support for a complete demo.

Download MQTT Broker now to get started with your IoT implementation. This version is currently available for Windows & Linux users. Also, MQTT Broker is now available with mobile app support to control MQTT devices using your android.

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