Internet of Things

Discuss about the Information Security for Internet of Things.

Internet of Things has become suddenly a thing, through the evolution of the concept has been running from several years, under different names. Internet of Things offer a great provision to connect various things through networking and ability to access them remotely. Since the internet has become invasive and pervasive from the floor of the factory to the operating room of the hospital, to a residential basement, Internet of Things seems to be viable and possible (Fell & Mark, 2013). However, there are many challenges of security for the human life and even to the humanity, if not managed and implemented with standards and laws.

Internet of Things is a hot thing now and it is an establishment of internetworking of the devices, gadgets, automobiles and in fact any physical thing that needs to be accessed virtually. The communication among these things is enabled through electronics, actuators, software, sensors, all connected through networking (Hardy & Quentin, 2015). Internet of Things has been considered by the experts as ‘the infrastructure of the information society’. Internet of Things allows the physical things or objects to be sensed and well controlled remotely, through the infrastructure of network and it creates new opportunities for direct virtual integration of the objects into the systems that are computer based offering potential benefits of improved efficiency, economic and accuracy.

Internet of Things can be applied technically to literally any physical object that allows to insert an embedded chip for its operation and control. However, because of the incomplete security assurance, these applications are still in process and long awaited to go. Once they go, it is estimated that more than 20 billion devices are going to be connected through Internet of Things by the year 2020.

The right and potential application of the Internet of Things is medical and healthcare. The devices of the Internet of Things can be used for enabling emergency notification system and remote health monitoring systems, majorly.

Media has been waiting so patiently to embrace the technology of the Internet of Things, to use it along with the present application of the new data technology, Big data, for majorly to two media applications. Firstly, the media wants to target the consumers, by marketers and advertising and secondly for huge data capture. Internet of Things is going to be a great measure, collect and analyze of the data of the consumer to analyse variety of behavioral statistics. The targeted products and services marketing could become revolutionize with cross-correlation of this huge collected data.

Applications

Management and network control of asset and equipment of manufacturing along with the situation management or control of manufacturing process could bring the Internet of Things within realm on the smart manufacturing and industrial applications as well.

The devices of the Internet of Things can be used to control and monitor the electrical and electronics, mechanical systems that are part of many kinds of buildings in building and home automation systems.

The technology of Internet of Things can be helpful in integration of information processing, control and communication across many transportation systems. Literally, the technology can be applicable for all aspects of the system of the transportation. 

The birth of security issue was started right from the moment, two computers were able to communicate. The potential and intensity of this security has been increasing with the number of computers and other computing and electronic devices are interconnected. These security challenges will be multi-fold, when the physical and day to day physical objects are added to this list (Verbeek & Peter-Paul, 2011).

Internet of Things has mere endless applications and the challenges in terms of security are almost close to that number.

There are many concerns that have been arise as part of the implications in implementing the technology, exploration. It is criticized all over the world that it is developed with less consideration of the challenges of security. Surveys conducted all over the world reveal the potential and degree of threat of the security connected to the Internet of Things. And security is still has been a biggest concern for consideration, before proceeding further with the adoption of the technology (Weber, et al., 2010).

According to Forbes, the issues of security have already arise, and many things that are connected with the Internet of Things, have become spy on people, in the homes that they are placed. These appliances, such as kitchen appliances, televisions, thermostats, cameras, etc., are connected through internet can easily be taken into stride by the attackers. Various things, including automobiles and it parts can be vulnerable to the hackers and attackers, who can easily access them and control them through on-board network.

The security issues and the open market for the data for accessing and controlling or even for hacking the networks and data can have huge impact on even economies of the countries. It can very well help the criminals and spies to focus and access control of the vulnerable targets (Hersent, et al., 2012).

Medical and Healthcare

There are security issues in industries. For instance, the following security issue can be prominent in the industries with the adaption of the Internet of Things. During the automation of the factory floor, the PLC (Programmable Logic Controllers) which are used to operate the robotic systems are usually get integrated with the infrastructure of the enterprise IT.  How can they be shielded from the interference of the human beings, while protecting the IT infrastructure investment and to leveraging control security available?

Though the security researchers of the Internet of Things have shown the capability to control remote pacemakers, by the year 2008, the technology has not been adopted majorly for the issues and challenges of the security. But security is mandatory and critical at both network and device levels, towards safer operation of the Internet of Things.

With the increased and growing concern for the security challenges of Internet of Things, the IoTSF (Internet of Things Security Foundation) had been launched in the year 2015, with a mission to promote best practice and knowledge about the Internet of Things.

Security is not an impossible aspect for the Internet of Things, while the security shielding is applied at every layer of the network and operating system. It should be enabled throughout the lifecycle of the device and it should start from the initial stages, right at the design and till the environment of the operation.

The integrity and authenticity of the software installed in the device is to be checked and verified, while the device is powered on, with the help of the digital signatures that are generated cryptographically. This is the key point, where foundation of trust can be established. However, the protection at this layer would not be sufficient as the layers above this core layer are also vulnerable to the security threats.

Various forms of access and resource controls are to be applied. The operating system has to be built with role-based mandatory access controls to limit the access and use of the applications and components of the devices, so that only things that need the job to be done would be accessed. So, in case of any compromise of any component has occurred, the intruder will have only limited or minimal access to the other components or parts of the system.

The device has to be authenticated itself, before plugging into the network, and before transmitting or receiving the data. Similar to the user authentication, which is provides the access through the given user name and password, the authentication of machine also provides access for the device to become part of the network.

Media

Apart from the authenticated machine access, it also needs deep packet inspection or firewall capability towards controlling traffic that has the destination towards device termination. But the question is, why a firewall is needed that is host-based, though network-based applications are placed? The devices that are deeply embedded have unique protocols, which are varied and distinct from the IT protocols of the enterprise.

After the device jumps into operation, it should start getting software updates and hot patches. These patches are to be rolled out by the operator and it should be controlled with authentication. So, devices have to authenticate, so that the functional safety of the device is not impaired or does not consume the bandwidth.

Internet of Things cannot be evolved and successful alone and it would be incomplete, especially in terms of security, when these associated technologies also rise to a certain secured levels (Ramsey, Rachel, 2014).

1. Optical technologies for safe and secured operation of the sensors
2. Near field and Radio Frequency Identification, for detection of the devices
3. Optical tag coding and quick response codes
4. Bluetooth low energy technology for wireless access of the devices
5. IP networks with low energy and accessible wireless
6. ZigBee communication technology for implementation of the layers for wireless private area networks
7. Z-wave communication protocol for applications for smart home, used with radio protocols
8. Thread, another Internet of Things communication technology
9. Wi-Fi Direct to establish peer to peer communication, with no need to establish access points
10. Ethernet networking standard used for general purpose, to enable communication of Internet of Things over fiber network links and twisted pair links 

The research question for Internet of Technology is that how well and how secured the Internet of Things application can be taken to the people, who can start using the application with no concerns of the security of their personal data and security of the data for their devices and other credentials.

Conclusion

Internet of Things has been a longer awaited technology waiting to be implemented globally. However, because of the security, privacy and legal issues, the commencement and real time usage of the technology has not been done yet. Internet of Things is basically a technology that provides the provision to interconnect the things, digitally, so that they can be operated virtually, by the users. Internet of Things has various applications, in fact endless, since it can be applied to every object on the planet and these applications are going to serve the humanity, when used safe and secured. The major concern is the challenges of security, since there is a potential chance of hacking the devices and the associated data, by the hackers and may use it inappropriately by the attackers. These security challenges have certain solutions that should be established at various stages and layers of the communication, such as from the operating system to the networking layers. 

References

Chris Clearfield. Why The FTC Can’t Regulate The Internet Of Things. Forbes.

Fell, Mark, 2013, “Manifesto for Smarter Intervention in Complex Systems” . Carré & Strauss, United Kingdom.

Hardy, Quentin, 2015, Tim O’Reilly Explains the Internet of Things. The New York Times Bits

Hersent, Olivier, David Boswarthick and Omar Elloumi. 2012, The Internet of Things: Key Applications and Protocols. Chichester, West Sussex: Wiley.

Howard, Philip, 2015, “Pax Technica: Will The Internet of Things Lock Us Up or Set Us Free?”. Yale University Press, New Haven CT.

Pal, Arpan, 2015, Internet of Things: Making the Hype a Reality,. IT Pro. IEEE Computer Society. 

Pfister, Cuno, , 2011, Getting Started with the Internet of Things. Sebastapool, Calif, O’Reilly Media, Inc.

Ramsey, Rachel, 2014, “PubNub Brings Reliable, Real-time Connectivity to the IoT with Connected Car Solution Kit”, IoT Evolution World

Stark, John, 2015,. Product Lifecycle Management: Volume 2. The Devil is in the Details. Appendix B: PLM and the Internet of Things (IoT), Springer.

Taylor, Harriet. REU Site: [email protected]: Cyber Security and Forensics Research at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock. NSF. National Science Foundation

Uckelmann, Dieter, Mark Harrison and Florian Michahelles , 2011, Architecting the Internet of Things, Springer, Berlin

Verbeek, Peter-Paul, 2011, Moralizing Technology: Understanding and Designing the Morality of Things, The University of Chicago Press, Chicago. 

Weber, Rolf, H., and Romana Weber, 2010, Internet of Things: Legal Perspectives, Springer, Berlin..

Zhou, Honbo, 2013, The Internet of Things in the Cloud: A Middleware Perspective. Boca Raton, CRC Press, Taylor & Francis Group.