Blocking of operation of unauthorised software using MQTT

This paper presents design and implementation of the 'Meerkat' system; a system that detects operation of software that is unauthorised. The MQTT protocol has been used for data communication in Meerkat system. The Meerkat system is largely comprised of three components: Meerkat client, the web application that operates as admin and the server software. The Meerkat client alerts the MQTT broker as soon as it detects operation of unauthorised software on the users PC. The admin receives the information from the MQTT broker immediately via the MQTT broker. To evaluate the performance of the system, the transmission time between messages delivered from the user/admin PC was measured. The measurements illustrated that it took, on average, 8~50 milliseconds for a message to be delivered. These results indicate that the messages are delivered quickly enough for the Meerkat system to be put into actual use.