Securing HTTP communication between NETMF device and Web Service :: Best Practices

Hi folks,

I’m not that well versed on SSL, HTTPS, certificates, etc. but I do understand the concepts behind them and what they’re used for, but I never had to actually work with these artifacts directly before - specially codingwise. However I’m aiming to build a web service (haven’t decided yet which .Net service framework to use: WCF, ASP.NET Web API, Service Stack, etc.) and my NETMF project would be used to make POST requests to this service, which I would in turn implement with a REST-based interface. My greatest concern is with “authorization”, since this will be exposed on the public Internet and I don’t want unauthorized clients posting to my service. I’m not sure if SSL is the (only or best) answer for this (maybe I could filter the requests by IP??), so right now I’m trying to gather some information that might guide my decision process and, in time, my coding efforts. Any thoughts and comments will be more than welcome.

Thanks.

Thank you for the very comprehensive feedback! Lots of information and guidance there! I’ll probably expand on this thread a bit more as soon as I start doing some tests. Thanks again.