Systematic mapping study to assess security landscape for IoT-based smart farming systems

Abstract

Smart farming systems sit at the intersection between three rapidly and independently advancing fields of IoT, Security, and Machine Learning. Its full realisation has tremendous positive impacts on food production; yet agricultural settings come with unique challenges that inhibit the rapid deployment of such state-of-the-art technologies. In this paper, we systematically study the current state of security for IoT-based smart farming research and development landscape and assess the proposed security solutions through the lens of technology readiness levels (TRL) and ISO/IEC 25010 security product evaluation framework. By analysing forty-eight primary studies, we identified the top security technologies under development, the critical security threats being addressed, and the most popularly used machine learning-based security solutions. Furthermore, we found that most of the ISO/IEC 25010 security characteristics considered by the security solutions are currently below TRL 6, indicating that they are well below the deployment readiness levels. Therefore, we recommend several supporting transitional technologies be developed to move the prototype development towards system validation and deployment to avoid the technology “valley of death”, such as farming-specific intrusion detection public datasets and large-scale IoT agriculture testbeds to validate the interoperability and transparency of security solutions at different layers. This systematic mapping study, together with a TRL assessment and ISO 25010 standard mapping, is the first of its kind, intending to provide a standardised comparison of the current state of security technologies for IoT-based smart farms to define a clear roadmap for future research and development. It provides a common terminology for the multidisciplinary stakeholders of smart farming to distinguish between theoretical security concepts and ready-to-deploy solutions, facilitating crucial decisions for investment, deployment, and commercialisation.