Securing Home IoT Devices Using MUD

Download the Practice Guide

The NCCoE has released the preliminary draft version of NIST Cybersecurity Practice Guide SP 1800-15, Securing Small-Business and Home Internet of Things (IoT) Devices: Mitigating Network-Based Attacks Using Manufacturer Usage Description (MUD). Use the buttons below to view this publication in its entirety or scroll down for links to a specific section.

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The National Cybersecurity Center of Excellence (NCCoE) has released a preliminary draft of the National Institute of Standards and Technology’s (NIST’s) Cybersecurity Practice Guide Special Publication (SP) 1800-15, Securing Small-Business and Home Internet of Things (IoT) Devices: Mitigating Network-Based Attacks Using Manufacturer Usage Description (MUD). This practice guide is intended to show IoT device developers and manufacturers, network equipment developers and manufacturers, and service providers who employ MUD-capable components how to integrate and use MUD and other tools to satisfy IoT users’ security requirements.

We expect that this preliminary draft will be expanded in the future. In the interim, view the current three volumes or download the complete guide. To see a brief overview, read the two-page fact sheet.

SP 1800-15A: Executive Summary (pdf) (web page)
SP 1800-15B: Approach, Architecture, and Security Characteristics (pdf) (web page)
SP 1800-15C: How-To Guides (pdf) (web page)
Supplement to Volume B: Functional Demonstration Results (pdf) (web page)

If you have questions or suggestions, please email us at mitigating-iot-ddos-nccoe@nist.gov. To receive announcements about additional milestones, or join our Community of Interest to receive email alerts.

The NCCoE and its collaborators have produced this practice guide to demonstrate the practicality and effectiveness of using the Internet Engineering Task Force’s manufacturer usage description (MUD) RFC 8520 to protect IoT devices on home and small-business networks, and to prevent them from being either victims and perpetrators of network-based attacks. MUD works by enabling networks to automatically permit each IoT device to send and receive only the traffic it requires to perform as intended, while blocking unauthorized communication with the device.

Users can implement MUD via several different approaches. This practice guide describes four MUD implementations—three of which are complete:

Build 1 (completed) used products from Cisco Systems, DigiCert, Forescout and Molex.
Build 2 (completed) used products from MasterPeace Solutions Ltd., Global Cyber Alliance (GCA), ThreatSTOP, and DigiCert.
Build 3 (in process) is using equipment supplied by CableLabs and is leveraging the Wi-Fi Alliance “Easy Connect” specification to securely onboard devices to the network.
Build 4 (completed) used software developed at the NIST Information Technology Laboratory Advanced Networking Technologies Division and technology from DigiCert.

This project can help different stakeholder groups, including:

organizations that rely on the internet can understand how MUD can be used to protect internet availability and performance against network-based attacks.
IoT device manufacturers can learn how MUD can protect against reputational damage that may result from their devices being exploited to support DDoS or other network-based attacks.
service providers can benefit from a reduction of the number of IoT devices that can be easily used by malicious actors to participate in DDoS attacks against their networks and degrade service for their customers.
users of IoT devices can gain insight into how MUD-capable products can protect their internal networks from being subverted by malicious actors.

If you have questions or would like to join our Community of Interest, please email the project team at mitigating-iot-ddos-nccoe@nist.gov.

MUD-Related Resources

Find resources to MUD-related information, including standards, tools, implementations, research papers, articles, and conferences here.

Collaborating Vendors

Organizations participating in this project submitted their capabilities in response to an open call in the Federal Register for all sources of relevant security capabilities from academia and industry (vendors and integrators). The following respondents with relevant capabilities or product components (identified as “Technology Partners/Collaborators” herein) signed a Cooperative Research and Development Agreement to collaborate with NIST in a consortium to build this example solution.

_{Certain commercial entities, equipment, products, or materials may be identified by name or company logo or other insignia in order to acknowledge their participation in this collaboration or to describe an experimental procedure or concept adequately. Such identification is not intended to imply special status or relationship with NIST or recommendation or endorsement by NIST or NCCoE; neither is it intended to imply that the entities, equipment, products, or materials are necessarily the best available for the purpose.}

Join Our Community of Interest

Interested in joining the Securing Home IoT Devices Using MUD Community of Interest? Contact us!

A Community of Interest is a group of professionals and technical advisors convened to support the cybersecurity resiliency of the U.S. economy. Read More.