The Internet of Things mainly refers to the everyday devices that have an internet connection and can communicate independently with the network and other devices. To improve our life, business, or the environment, we can use the information that is provided by these things. As of today, approximately 30 billion IoT devices are currently active, and this number is increasing significantly year on year. This huge amount of IoT devices signifies much more collected data (Big Data) that further requires controlling, securing, and analyzing. Here, Cybersecurity plays an important part in the IoT.
The term cyber in Cybersecurity means related to information technology, data transfer, or computer systems. In other words, cybersecurity refers to the protection of computer systems, mobile, electronic devices, networks, servers, programs, and data from attack, damage, or unauthorized access. The data domains in a cyber world contain any form of data( numbers, texts, pictures, audio, and video) that can be digitized. These data can include a great deal of personal information such as a user’s background, discussions, locations, interests. These also may include sensitive personal data such as educational or medical data, employment, and financial records, online information, and identity.
The data of IoT devices are used to create useful information to improve living conditions, efficiency, and safety, but it also carries risks and responsibilities. For this, security certainly needs to be carefully worked out and added to the design of a system across every part: devices, the network, programs, and data.
Vulnerability in IoT
The vulnerability exists in all parts of the IoT environment (sensors, networks, devices, platforms, applications, and interfaces). The nature of the IoT environment and the fact that IoT devices such as sensors, actuators, and microchips are all connected to the Internet increases the security vulnerabilities, and attackers have more opportunities to compromise the system. These IoT devices often lack critical device protections such as strong passwords, up-to-date operating systems, and segmented networks.
The IoT devices are constrained devices with restricted power, memory, and processing cycles. They also have limited communication capabilities. Sometimes, due to the finite processing power of these devices, there is no implementation of encryption.
Hardware vulnerabilities
In any IoT system, the underlying hardware plays a crucial role in all aspects of security. There are several challenges in the security management of IoT devices as various vendors with different levels of quality are manufacturing them. IoT devices typically have limited computation power and need to be energy efficient. So, they may not have sophisticated cryptographic algorithms or authentication protocols. Hardware Trojans (HT) and Side-Channel Analysis (SCA) attacks are some hardware security threats in Integrated Circuits (IC).
Cybersecurity challenges in IoT
The cybersecurity challenges in IoT are very much similar to the IT environment but with different dimensions. Despite the importance of security in IoT solutions, many companies are designing them in a rush, and the final products are presented to the market without sufficient security measures. Many products fail to encrypt the video streams from cameras and firmware updates. The communication between the client and server is in plain text, and passwords are stored insecurely, in many cases. And this makes them an easy target for cyber-attacks and create complex security challenges.
When dealing with cybersecurity in an IoT environment, it is essential to include device (physical) security as well as data security. The common cyber-attacks on an IoT environment are Botnet, Man-in-the-Middle, Data, and Identity Theft, Code Injection, and DDOS attacks.
IoT brings both benefits and privacy risks. Voice assistant devices such as Amazon Echo, Apple HomePod, and Google Home are examples that can create privacy vulnerabilities. The designing of these devices are in such a way that they record and send encrypted voice messages to a server. But back in 2017, Google admits that its new speaker Google Home Mini was eavesdropping on users without receiving the wake-up phrase.
Issues in the network services
Attackers take advantage of insecure network services to launch DoS, DDoS, botnet, and buffer overflow attacks. In many IoT network services, unnecessary ports are open, and the required open ports are not configured with security measures.
Cyber Attacks on IoT
A botnet is several internet-enabled devices, such as computers, smartphones, or IoT equipment, that are connected to perform particular tasks. At first, they were developed to maximize efficiency when performing the repetitive tasks necessary to keep websites running smoothly. Unfortunately, botnets are now commonly formed by an attacker taking device control without the knowledge or consent of the people that own that device. Botnets are generally used in DDOS attacks and to misappropriate data. The more common cyber-attacks on an IoT environment are Botnet, Man-in-the-Middle, Data, and Identity Theft, Code Injection, and DDOS attacks.
Insufficient Testing and Updates Risks
Software updates can also be troublesome for IoT devices. Many companies are incautious when it comes to proper testing and providing timely software updates. If there is a lack of full testing of official updates, then they can also be an issue, mostly when multiple varieties of an IoT device exist. Manufacturers of computing hardware often become aware of weaknesses and vulnerabilities of the software that ships with their hardware and need to send out updates to address these threats.
Insecure Cloud Interface
Hackers use a technique of Account enumeration on cloud interfaces to discover login credentials. They use server responses to fake usernames and passwords in the “Login” and “Forgot Password” pages to narrow down what the credentials must be. Many IoT cloud interfaces are not configured with a powerful authentication system and are easy to exploit.
Poor Physical security
Anyone who has physical access to the device is a threat to the system. They can easily disassemble an IoT device and retrieve the data from the storage medium. Also, the USB and any other external ports on the device introduce a security vulnerability where attackers can access the data and device configurations.
More IoT Devices
Kevin Ashton introduced the term Internet of Things ( IoT) in 1999. Since then, the number of IoT devices has had exponential growth. Consumers are rapidly adopting IoT applications and products for changing and improving the quality of daily life. More IoT devices signify an increase in security vulnerabilities, and it is a growing challenge for security professionals.
Insecure Web interfaces
IoT applications are mostly using web interfaces to communicate to a web server. It is common to have an insecure web interface in IoT products with security flaws like weak authentication and password recovery systems and susceptibility to a code injection attack.
Privacy Concerns
The lack of data access control, encryption on collected data in many IoT applications creates issues in regards to the privacy of data and especially for the security of personal data. Hackers can steal and compromise the user’s data in the absence of proper data protection.
Mobile Application Risks
Mobile applications are widely in use in IoT environments for collecting, storing, and transmitting data (mostly personal data) via mobile interfaces. The communication from mobile interfaces to Cloud and IoT devices is not always secure as, in many cases, without encryption, data is transmitted. The existence of insufficient authentication processes in many mobile interfaces makes them susceptible to account enumeration attacks. Accessing mobile interfaces helps the attackers to control the devices and compromises the user data.
IoT Cybersecurity Solutions
Analyze the risks
All developers must employ and enforce a strict process of IoT risk analysis that is a three-step process:
- Evaluate the IoT device for their strengths and weaknesses.
- Evaluate any potential attackers and profile their possible methods.
- Examine any possible attack paths.
Cybersecurity Framework
To address the cybersecurity and privacy prerequisite inside organizations, the U.S National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) developed a cybersecurity framework. The most recent form of the NIST Cybersecurity system is suitable for IoT gadgets. The framework comprises five core functions: identify, protect, detect, respond, and recover.
Identify: To understand the operations of the organization and identify the cybersecurity risks in areas like systems, people, assets, data, and capabilities.
Protect: To develop and implement appropriate safeguards to ensure service delivery.
Detect: For detecting and identifying any ocurred cybersecurity event.
Respond: Uses appropriate methods to minimize the impact of the cybersecurity incident on business operations.
Recover: For the development of flexible plans and implementation of the timely restoration of services and capabilities impaired by cybersecurity.
Cryptography
Cryptographic approaches are effective methods for securing the IoT network. Here, we disccused about encryption and digital certificate.
Encryption
Encryption is the most effective way to achieve data security. It involves encoding a message or information. You probably engaged in some simple encryption when writing secret notes as a child or writing in invisible ink and needing a UV light to expose the message. Likewise, computer encryption uses the same basic principles. But, it can be read-only by the sender and the intended recipient. To read an encrypted file, you must have access to a secret key or password that enables you to decrypt it. Encrypted data is commonly referred to as Ciphertext while unencrypted data is called plaintext.
Digital Certificate
Digital certificates play a significant role in establishing device identity, integrity, and maintaining data. PKI (Public Key Infrastructure) uses digital certificates to enable device-to-device or device-to-server identity authentication. The digital certificates also protect the data exchanged between devices. They are the foundation of a network’s IoT security, protecting its data, authenticating, and creating trust.
Fog computing
Another method to increase the security of IoT devices is by using the fog. The fog extends the reach of the cloud, so it is closer to the devices that create and act on IoT data. A fog node can be any device with computing, storage, and network connectivity. It can be located anywhere with a network connection. By acting on data at the source, Fog Computing reduces the security risks.
Blockchain
Blockchain is one of the most promising innovations in IoT security. A significant issue in securing digital transactions is that of trust, and blockchain technology helps to solve that problem.
In addition, blockchain allows linking and securing of immutable digital records (blocks) using cryptography and distributed them across multiple computers. This implies, no company or person owns the system, yet everyone can use it. And it’s difficult for any person to corrupt it. It uses cryptography to ensure that the records can’t be counterfeited or changed by anyone else.
Some of the IoT security and trust challenges tackled by using blockchain technology are:
- It is a distributed ledger that eliminates a single source of failure within the IoT ecosystem.
- Without the need for an intermediary, IoT sensors can exchange data with each other more securely, and this also reduces the operation costs of IoT.
- Tracking sensor data accurately and preventing malicious data.
- Providing IoT device identification, authentication, and secure data transmission.
- IoT deployment is simplified, which makes IoT devices directly addressable with blockchain.
In conclusion, in the future, blockchains could enable us to make self-driving cars safer, to launch entirely algorithm managed companies, help us to protect our online identities, and even track the billions of devices on the Internet of Things.
