System and method for service-initiated internet of things (iot) device updates

Abstract

A system and method are described for performing service-initiated updates to IoT devices. For example, one embodiment of a system comprises: a plurality of IoT devices, each IoT device comprising: a storage device to store attributes and/or program code; a processor to execute the program code using the attributes to perform one or more specified functions of the IoT device, and attribute/code management circuitry and/or logic to manage a current state of the attributes and/or program code; an Internet of Things (IoT) cloud service to be communicatively coupled to IoT devices over the Internet, the IoT cloud service including an update service to initiate updates of the attributes and/or program code stored on the plurality of IoT devices, an IoT device to transmit a notification to the update service upon reaching a particular initialization state, the notification including an indication of a current attribute and/or program code state; the update service to responsively determine whether an update to the current attribute and/or program code state is available and, if so, to use a first key to generate a signature over a binary which includes the update to the attribute and/or program code state to generate a signed binary; the update service to further store the signed binary in a designated network location and to generate or retrieve a Uniform Resource Locator (URL) identifying the network location, the update service to transmit an update command to the IoT device containing the URL; the attribute/code management circuitry and/or logic of the IoT device to interpret the URL to retrieve the signed binary, to use a second key to verify the signature, and to responsively update the attribute and/or program code in accordance with the binary.