Performance Analysis of Zero Trust Architecture vs. Perimeter Security on Smart Home IoT Power Control Devices Under Simulated DDoS Attacks

Enenmoh, Andrew Chinedu (2025) Performance Analysis of Zero Trust Architecture vs. Perimeter Security on Smart Home IoT Power Control Devices Under Simulated DDoS Attacks. Masters thesis, Dublin, National College of Ireland.

Preview	PDF (Master of Science) Download (5MB) | Preview
Preview	PDF (Configuration Manual) Download (7MB) | Preview

Abstract

This research investigates the comparative effectiveness of Zero Trust Architecture (ZTA), Perimeter Security (PS), and ZTA with Rate Limiting on smart home IoT power control devices under simulated DDoS attacks. A controlled simulation framework was developed to emulate ESP8266 and ESP32 based devices under HTTP and UDP flood conditions. Under baseline conditions, all architectures showed similar performance: PS (128.5 ms latency, 27.6% CPU overhead), ZTA (123.5 ms, 36.4% CPU), and ZTA+RL (121.5 ms, 28.9% CPU), with 100% availability. During 50-thread HTTP flood attacks, ZTA maintained 100% service availability compared to PS's eventual degradation to 82% at 100 concurrent threads. ZTA demonstrated superior resilience with only 3.3% points CPU overhead increase, while ZTA+RL achieved 95% availability but introduced a 5% false-positive rate. Mean latency doubled across all modes (220-245ms) under attack conditions. UDP flood attacks proved ineffective against all architectures, with performance remaining near baseline levels due to OS-level packet filtering. Statistical analysis using confirmed medium to large effect sizes (d=0.62-1.09) between ZTA and PS under attack conditions, with power analysis showing >99% confidence in results for HTTP flood scenarios. These findings affirm ZTA's practical viability for resource constrained IoT devices, challenging assumptions about its performance cost while providing empirical evidence for security architecture selection in smart home environments.

Item Type:	Thesis (Masters)
Supervisors:	Name Email McLaughlin, Eugene UNSPECIFIED
Uncontrolled Keywords:	Zero Trust Architecture; Perimeter Security; Rate Limiting; DDoS; and Internet of Things (IoT)
Subjects:	Q Science > QA Mathematics > Electronic computers. Computer science T Technology > T Technology (General) > Information Technology > Electronic computers. Computer science Q Science > QA Mathematics > Computer software > Computer Security T Technology > T Technology (General) > Information Technology > Computer software > Computer Security T Technology > TK Electrical engineering. Electronics. Nuclear engineering > Telecommunications > Computer networks > Internet of things
Divisions:	School of Computing > Master of Science in Cyber Security
Depositing User:	Ciara O'Brien
Date Deposited:	15 Jun 2026 13:55
Last Modified:	15 Jun 2026 13:55
URI:	https://norma.ncirl.ie/id/eprint/9353

Actions (login required)

View Item