FIDO Alliance Supports Large-Scale IoT Environments
FIDO Device Onboarding Protocol Globally Released
Improving Security for Industrial/Commercial IoT Applications


On the 21st, the FIDO Alliance globally released the FIDO Device Onboard (FDO) protocol. The FDO protocol enables devices to be easily and securely integrated into cloud and on-premise management platforms.

Through the FDO protocol, the FIDO Alliance helps address the security, cost, and complexity challenges associated with large-scale deployments in IoT environments. FDO reinforces the core vision of the FIDO Alliance, which brings together more than 250 of the world's most influential and innovative companies and government agencies to eliminate data breaches and support safe online experiences.

IDC predicts that the IoT market will continue its double-digit annual growth rate, surpassing $1 trillion by 2022. Despite this anticipated growth, a recent survey of vendors and enterprise users found that a majority of companies are concerned about infrastructure breaches.

Of the 170 IoT leaders who participated in the survey, 85% said security concerns remain a major obstacle to IoT adoption. Sixty-four percent of respondents cited IoT security as their top short-term priority. This figure surpasses edge computing (55%), AI/machine learning (50%), and 5G deployment (28%).

This FDO specification for IoT was developed to address IoT security issues during onboarding, similar to how the FIDO authentication standard is used to prevent data breaches. The FDO IoT specification is freely implementable for industrial and commercial applications.

◇ Supports fast and secure IoT device onboarding.

FIDO is an automated onboarding protocol for IoT devices. It utilizes asymmetric public key cryptography to provide a fast and secure way to onboard all IoT devices.

The FDO protocol eliminates the need for installation costs. The highly automated FDO process can be performed quickly and efficiently, regardless of user experience.

Additionally, you can decide which cloud platform to onboard devices to at the point of installation, as opposed to manufacturing them yourself. By onboarding a single device stock-keeping unit (SKU) across all platforms, you can significantly simplify your device supply chain.

Security is also a strength. Because the FDO protocol utilizes an "untrusted installer" approach, installers do not need sensitive infrastructure or access control information to add devices to the network.

Meanwhile, this FDO technology standard was jointly developed by Qualcomm, Amazon, Google, and Microsoft, which are members of the FIDO Alliance IoT technology division.