When it comes to prominent technologies that are certain to rule the world and our everyday lives in the future, IoT is one of those that have a profound impact. We use this technology daily, and there are now more connected devices than there are people in the world.
However, there’s more to IoT than smart home appliances and GPS dog collars that can track your puppy if it escapes. The use of IoT in different industries is expanding, which brings forth a host of potential problems that jeopardize trust in connected things. The main issue is that IoT is inherently vulnerable to cyber attacks. It causes a security game of faith of sorts where everyone wants to use IoT, but at the same time, they’re hoping that they won’t be the ones to experience potential security problems. Let’s have a closer look at some of these issues.
What Is the Anatomy of IoT?
An IoT ecosystem consists of five different areas:
- The IoT device itself;
- The gateway, which processes information from the devices;
- The network;
- The server or cloud;
- Applications.
IoT establishes the conditions which allow all these parts of its ecosystem to connect and exchange information. Unfortunately, with the number of devices and ways of connecting them, cybercriminals can exploit these connections and launch potent attacks.
Ways of Attacking IoT
When it comes to attacking the IoT infrastructure, there are a few common vectors of attack. The first is the physical attack on the device in question. Other ways include attacking through the network, server or cloud, and through software. What makes it so difficult to completely secure IoT is the sheer size of the attack surface and variety of OS (operating systems), development languages, and network protocols that are being used in IoT.
Trusting and Measuring Security
Since IoT inherent weaknesses can pose huge security concerns, it’s no wonder that there’s a lack of trust in IoT. It is a problem, as trust is one of the base conditions for continuing to rely on this technology to progress further. If we are to keep on using and developing IoT, we need to work on creating new, better practices for enhancing its security.
One of the possible solutions is implementing new regulations that would aim to improve our current evaluation and certification methods, security audits and testing. It would also be essential to create such a system where all its solutions would complement each other. Also, if we are going to measure security, there has to exist a unified standard against which all IoT devices will be evaluated.
Ultimately, the matter of IoT security is a game of trust between everyone involved in the process of designing, developing and using IoT devices. To ensure IoT security, we need better designing and manufacturing practices, a universal and inexpensive evaluation and certification process, as well as more transparency about these issues. Only then can we enhance our trust in IoT and welcome the future with open arms.