Holistic Survey on Security in IoT Application Layer: Attacks, Protocols, and Applications

Context: The growing number of linked devices, the limitations of some IoT devices, worries about data privacy, risks to physical safety, and the ever-changing threats all highlight why it's crucial to have strong security measures in the IoT application layer. We need these measures to protect our devices and data, keep our personal information safe, and prevent potential harm or attacks. It's important to make sure our IoT applications have effective security to counter these risks. Objective: The study's goal is to examine the research on IoT application layer security with attacks, applications and protocols and demands further focus in current and future research areas. Method: To find the relevant literature, a systematic investigation was done, in 221 articles, 123 articles are selected as a most relevant articles and classified as security in IoT applications and protocols. Result: This paper mainly concentrated on security in IoT application layer, the articles are grouped as attacks, applications and protocols. Based on IoT applications, smart home (15.3%), smart health care (12.2%), smart home (13.3%), smart agriculture (17.3%), smart vehicles (16.3%), smart grid(15.3%) and Industrial IoT (10.2%) represents the majority of articles. This survey further analyses the performance metrics, parameters and performance evaluation of the existing literature. Conclusion: The results confirm that we need these measures to protect our devices and data, keep our personal information safe, and prevent potential harm or attacks. It's important to make sure our IoT applications have effective security to counter these risks.