Cloudflare, Inc.
Protecting internet of things (IoT) devices at the network level

Abstract:

An Internet of Things (IoT) protection service at the network level is described. A secure session is established between an edge server and an IoT client that is requesting to send data to an IoT device. The edge server receives the request from the IoT client over the secure session instead of the IoT device directly because a Domain Name System (DNS) request for a unique fully qualified domain name assigned to the IoT device returns an IP address of the edge server instead of an IP address of the IoT device. The edge server analyzes the request to determine whether to transmit the request to the IoT device, including applying web application firewall rule(s) against the request. If the request does not trigger any rule, then the edge server transmits the request to the IoT device. If the request triggers any rule, then the edge server blocks the request.