Developing an Open Source Tool for Man-in-the-Middle (MitM) Attacks on the MQTT Protocol

Abstract

[Abstract] IoT has facilitated the connection of millions of devices, creating an interconnected ecosystem of machines that collect, process, and transmit large amounts of data. This ecosystem is becoming a target of interest for the cybercriminals because many of the devices within it lack robust security protocols and measures. The resulting vulnerabilities, while already posing risks to users of these technologies, can have devastating impacts at the industrial level. The objective of this work is to develop a new tool that allows the alteration of MQTT traffic, a popular IoT protocol, in conjunction with other known technologies and techniques to carry out Man-in-the- Middle attacks, providing a newoption to understand this kind of attack and to test the resistance of the communications.