LoRa data rate Table

Long Range Wide Area Network (LoRaWAN) devices have been hacking targets for quite some time . We dive into attacks that malicious actors can use against vulnerable LoRaWAN devices, and review the state of LoRaWAN security.

LoRaWAN communication system. The data transfer rate varies from 300 bps to 37.5 kbps , depending on the spreading factor and the bandwidth of the communication channel. A LoRa Gateway has the ability to simultaneously receive and broadcast messages with different SF (spreading factors).

The main disadvantage of LoRa however is exactly what enables its strengths, namely the low bandwidth . Furthermore, the protocol doesn’t allow continuous sending, due to rules on the frequency band it utilises. Because of this, LoRa is only suited for short and periodical communications.

LoRaWAN is by design very secure —authentication and encryption are, in fact, mandatory—but networks and devices can be compromised if security keys are not kept safe, not randomized across devices or if cryptographic numbers used once (nonces) are reused, as is shown by numerous blog posts.