Cyber-Physical WebAssembly: Secure Hardware Interfaces and Pluggable Drivers

Van Kenhove M, Seidler M, Vandenberghe F, Dujardin W, Hennen W, Vogel A, Sebrechts M, Goethals T, De Turck F, Volckaert B (2025)

Publication Language: English

Publication Type: Conference contribution

Publication year: 2025

Publisher: Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Inc.

Conference Proceedings Title: NOMS 2025-2025 IEEE Network Operations and Management Symposium

Event location: Honolulu, HI US

ISBN: 979-8-3315-3164-5

DOI: 10.1109/NOMS57970.2025.11073737

Abstract

The rapid expansion of Internet of Things (IoT), edge, and embedded devices in the past decade has introduced numerous challenges in terms of security and configuration management. Simultaneously, advances in cloud-native development practices have greatly enhanced the development experience and facilitated quicker updates, thereby enhancing application security. However, applying these advances to IoT, edge, and embedded devices remains a complex task, primarily due to the heterogeneous environments and the need to support devices with extended lifespans. WebAssembly and the WebAssembly System Interface (WASI) has emerged as a promising technology to bridge this gap. As WebAssembly becomes more popular on IoT, edge, and embedded devices, there is a growing demand for hardware interface support in WebAssembly programs. This work presents WASI proposals and proof-of-concept implementations to enable hardware interaction with I2C and USB, which are two commonly used protocols in IoT, directly from WebAssembly applications. This is achieved by running the device drivers within WebAssembly as well. A thorough evaluation of the proof of concepts shows that WASI-USB introduces a minimal overhead of at most 8% compared to native operating system USB APIs. However, the results show that runtime initialization overhead can be significant in low-latency applications.

Authors with CRIS profile

Maximilian Seidler Lehrstuhl für Informatik 4 (Systemsoftware) Arne Vogel Lehrstuhl für Informatik 4 (Systemsoftware)

Involved external institutions

Universiteit Gent (UGent) / Ghent University BE Belgium (BE)

How to cite

APA:

Van Kenhove, M., Seidler, M., Vandenberghe, F., Dujardin, W., Hennen, W., Vogel, A.,... Volckaert, B. (2025). Cyber-Physical WebAssembly: Secure Hardware Interfaces and Pluggable Drivers. In Doug Zuckerman, Mehmet Ulema, Noura Limam, Young-Tak Kim, Lisandro Zambenedetti Granville, Vinicius Fulber-Garcia (Eds.), NOMS 2025-2025 IEEE Network Operations and Management Symposium. Honolulu, HI, US: Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Inc..

MLA:

Van Kenhove, Michiel, et al. "Cyber-Physical WebAssembly: Secure Hardware Interfaces and Pluggable Drivers." Proceedings of the 38th IEEE/IFIP Network Operations and Management Symposium, NOMS 2025, Honolulu, HI Ed. Doug Zuckerman, Mehmet Ulema, Noura Limam, Young-Tak Kim, Lisandro Zambenedetti Granville, Vinicius Fulber-Garcia, Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Inc., 2025.

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