Talk · Procedia Computer Science · January 1, 2026

Security Assessment and Secure Architecture Design for an IoT-Based Vertical Hydroponic Farming System

Сакен Тлеубердин, Konstantin Malakhov, Daniyar Dauletiya, Yan Kudashov, Tolegen Aidynov, Дина Сатыбалдина

Abstract

The paper describes the system design and security analysis of an IoT vertical hydroponic farming system, which comprises environmental sensors, an ESP32 controller, wireless communication, and a web-based control and monitoring platform. Most related work evaluates only the functionality of their systems. In this paper, we also evaluate the security aspects of our system, at the wireless, network, and application layers. The assessment involved a penetration testing exercise and structured testing process that included wireless attacks (PMKID, deauthentication), network scanning, and traffic analysis, followed by web application testing. The results of this study showed some issues such as deauthentication attacks, plaintext HTTP communication, public APIs without authentication, and cross-site scripting (XSS) which can be considered as a major security loophole in practical IoT applications for farm use. It makes a primary contribution in the establishment of a multi-level security assessment system. It also identifies attack vectors in the real world and provides recommendations for secure architecture design, encryption, access control, and reliability improvement.

IoT and Edge/Fog ComputingNetwork Security and Intrusion DetectionSmart Agriculture and AIInternet of Things securitypenetration testingde-authentication attack

Security Assessment and Secure Architecture Design for an IoT-Based Vertical Hydroponic Farming System

Abstract

More by Tolegen Aidynov