Proximity-Aware Security for IoT Devices Using One-Time URLs

Abstract—The rapid proliferation of Internet of Things (IoT) devices has raised significant security and privacy challenges, particularly in scenarios where mobile devices interact with IoT endpoints. Traditional authentication mechanisms often lack context-awareness and can be vulnerable to replay attacks, eavesdropping, and unauthorized access. This paper proposes a proximity-aware security mechanism that leverages one-time URLs (OT-URLs) to authenticate mobile devices with IoT devices in a secure and efficient manner. The proposed framework generates unique, time-bound URLs that are valid only within a specified proximity, ensuring that authentication is performed only by devices physically near the IoT endpoint. By combining proximity detection with one-time URL authentication, the system mitigates the risks of remote attacks while maintaining user convenience and scalability. Experimental evaluation demonstrates that the proposed approach achieves high security assurance with minimal computational overhead, making it suitable for resource-constrained IoT environments. This method can be effectively applied to smart homes, industrial IoT, and other mobile-IoT interaction scenarios.