Standards-Compliant Zero Trust Framework-Based Software-Defined Perimeter (SDP) for Securing Residential IoT Networks

The proliferation of consumer Internet of Things (IoT) devices has significantly expanded the attack surface of residential networks, exposing them to misconfigurations, excessive permissions, and lateral movement threats. This paper presents a novel Zero Trust Architecture (ZTA) that integrates Manufacturer Usage Description (MUD) policies with a Software-Defined Perimeter (SDP) enforcement framework to secure consumer-grade IoT environments. Our approach enables automated, context-aware access control through device-specific policy generation, WireGuard-based encrypted tunnels, and dynamic micro-segmentation enforced at the IoT gateway. We implement and evaluate the system on a Raspberry Pi-based testbed, demonstrating a 78% reduction in manual configuration time and effective real-time enforcement of least-privilege policies. Security evaluations confirm full prevention of unauthorized lateral traffic and rapid reaction to policy violations. The architecture adheres to secure-by-default principles and aligns with emerging standards such as RFC 8520 and the EU Cyber Resilience Act, offering a scalable and standards-compliant path to Zero Trust in residential IoT deployments.