A Comprehensive Survey on the Requirements, Applications, and Future Challenges for Access Control Models in IoT: The State of the Art

The Internet of Things (IoT) is a technologyof connecting billions of devices with heterogeneous types and capabilities. Even though it is an attractive environment that could change the way we interact with the devices, the real-life and large-scale implementation of it is greatly impeded by the potential security risks that it is susceptible to. While the potential of IoT is significant, the security challenges it faces are equally formidable. IoT security can be addressed from different angles, but one of the key issues is the access control model because among the many challenges, access control is a pivotal concern that determines the overall security of IoT systems. This eventually determines which device is given access to the IoT systems and which is denied access. In this work, we conduct a systematic and thorough survey on the state-of-the-art access control models in IoT. This study includes more than 100 related articles, including 77 best-quartile journal papers. We cover conventional as well as advanced access control models, taking the crucial period of various studies in this particular area. In addition, a number of critical questions are answered and key works are summarized. Furthermore, we identify significant gaps in existing models and propose new considerations and prospects for future developments. Since no existing survey explores both conventional and sophisticated access control models with essential challenges, trends and application domains analysis, and requirements analysis, our study significantly contributes to the literature, especially in the IoT security field.