DECAY: Dynamic Evaluation and Component Analysis for Enhancing Trust Management.

The Internet of Things (IoT) has gained widespread use across various domains, necessitating robust trust management for safeguarding data integrity and device reliability. Existing trust management algorithms often overlook the impact of a device’s lifespan on trust adjustments. To address this shortcoming, we propose an innovative trust management strategy that introduces an “engagement-level” component as a key feature. This component considers a device’s past performance, granting established devices milder trust penalties than new ones and facilitating faster trust restoration for devices with low trust levels. Our approach also introduces a trust decay mechanism to handle inactive devices and cease contributing to the system, resulting in decreased trust levels. By discouraging passive behavior and encouraging active participation, this mechanism enhances IoT system trustworthiness. Through simulations and evaluations, we have demonstrated that our approach bolsters system security by scrutinizing malicious devices and rewarding active, trustworthy ones. It ensures vigilant threat monitoring, bolstering system security and improving trust assessment in the IoT environment. By integrating the engagement-level component and trust decay mechanism, our approach offers a dynamic trust management system that addresses existing algorithm limitations, enhancing accuracy and adaptability.