Cascoda and OCF

Cascoda joined the Open Connectivity Foundation (OCF) in 2019, and we have since pioneered the development of OCF-over-Thread. The company currently holds the following positions in OCF:

Former member of the Board of Directors
Chair of the Technology Steering Committee
Chair of the Marketing Communications Work Group

Overview

The Open Connectivity Foundation (OCF) is a standards organization that develops application-layer IoT protocols, based on the Internet Protocol (IP), using strong open standards. IoTivity® is the open source reference implementation of the OCF specification. IoTivity® provides a framework for device discovery, on-boarding, end-to-end security (and optionally, data models), for device-to-device and device-to-cloud connectivity. OCF is published as a ISO/IEC specification, and there is a comprehensive certification program in place.

Cascoda has already ported the OCF IoTivity® stack to its Thread-based Chili2 module, and has created a full development kit and associated Thread Border Router.

Cascoda® & OCF®
Pioneer of OCF-over-Thread & Chair of Technology Steering Committee & the MARCOM Work Group
Supports IPv6

Link layer agnostic
(Thread, Wi-Fi, Ethernet etc.)

PKI Security
Supports Public Key Infrastructure (PKI) security
Device-to-cloud

Device-to-device & device-to-cloud connectivity

Guaranteed interoperability

Platform agnostic
(iOS, Android, Linux, Windows, Embedded etc.)

Open Source

Open source implementation,
IoTivity Lite

OCF Security

OCF, as an IP-based application layer, ensures that the data sent over the internet, whether device to device, or device to cloud, cannot be read or modified by anyone except the desired recipient. This security system is called end-to-end encryption. End-to-end encryption is important, because information exchange over the internet may pass through the networks of intermediary organisations such as telecom and internet providers in multiple jurisdictions worldwide.

OCF achieves end-to-end encryption using a set of policies and procedures known as Public Key Infrastructure (PKI). PKI defines how to employ public and private digital certificates to perform end-to-end encryption. OCF employs a communications protocol known as Datagram Transport Layer Security (DTLS) to exchange PKI public key certificates between the OCF client and OCF server. Both the OCF client and server then use the public key certificates of the respective recipient to securely encrypt the data to be sent, such that the recipient is the only one that can read it.

The OCF specification maps to the IoT industry Baseline Security requirements as described below, with the Baseline Table comparing each Baseline Category against the relevant OCF Specification clause:





Cascoda's Certified OCF-over-Thread

Cascoda's OCF-over-Thread solution has achieved the highest (Gold) standard of IoT security according to the IASME 'IoT Security Assured scheme'. This scheme is aligned with the ETSI technical standard for IoT security, EN 303 645, and with the proposed UK IoT security legislation and guidance. It is also mapped to the IoTSF Security Compliance Framework. Click on the certificate below for further information: