Methodology for Characterizing Network Behavior of Internet of Things Devices

The National Institute of Standards and Technology’s (NIST’s) National Cybersecurity Center of Excellence (NCCoE) is working to improve the ability of network administrators and operators of Internet of Things (IoT) networks to identify, understand, and document network communication requirements of IoT devices. Documenting the types of devices and communication behaviors of those devices can allow creation of files based on the Manufacturer Usage Description (MUD) specification, which can be used by network administrators to manage access to and from those devices.

Note that the Document Conventions section earlier in this white paper defines several terms as used in this paper. Readers should review those definitions before proceeding.