Welcome to Manufacturer Usage Descriptions (MUD)
MUD is a form of IoT security that looks at ways by which manufacturers explain to network deployments what L3/L4 communication patterns they designed their devices to use.
The basic concept makes use of a URL that is poot out by a device using one of several mechanisms, such as DHCP, LLDP, or as part of an 802.1AR certificate in an EAP-TLS/802.1X authentication. The URL is then resolved to go get a JSON-encoded YANG-based policy.
What do you get for that?
The goal of MUD is to reduce the threat surface on a device to just that of those specific services on specific systems that are expected to communicate with a Thing.
The Good News
- We're reusing DHCP, EAP-TLS, LLDP, 802.1AR, and HTTPS to do all of this.
- All of this configures the network and so no new device agents are anticipated.