Security Considerations for Internet of Things: a Survey
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
SN Computer Science (2020) 1:193 https://doi.org/10.1007/s42979-020-00201-3 SURVEY ARTICLE Security Considerations for Internet of Things: A Survey Anca Jurcut1 · Tiberiu Niculcea1 · Pasika Ranaweera1 · Nhien‑An Le‑Khac1 Received: 27 January 2020 / Accepted: 18 May 2020 © Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd 2020 Abstract Interconnecting “things” and devices that takes the form of wearables, sensors, actuators, mobiles, computers, meters, or even vehicles is a critical requirement for the current era. These inter-networked connections are serving the emerging applications home and building automation, smart cities and infrastructure, smart industries, and smart-everything. However, the security of these connected Internet of things (IoT) plays a centric role with no margin for error. After a review of the relevant, online literature on the topic and after looking at the market trends and developments, one can notice that there are still concerns with regard to security in IoT products and services. This paper is focusing on a survey on IoT security and aims to highlight the most signifcant problems related to safety and security in the IoT ecosystems. This survey identifes the general threat and attack vectors against IoT devices while highlighting the faws and weak points that can lead to breaching the security. Furthermore, this paper presents solutions for remediation of the compromised security, as well as methods for risk mitiga- tion, with prevention and improvement suggestions. Keywords IoT security · IoT threats · Risk mitigation · Quantum computing · Blockchain Introduction As IoT devices are interconnecting at every level and eve- rywhere, interacting with each other and the human beings, Internet of things (IoT) is the future of the Internet that will it is evident that security takes the spotlight. Securing these interconnect billions of intelligent communicating ’things’ devices will become everyone’s priority, from manufactur- to cater diverse services to Information Technology (IT) ers to silicon vendors (or IP developers), to software and users on a daily basis [92]. The IoT continues to afect the application developers, and to the fnal consumer, the ben- whole aspects of one’s private and professional life. In the efciary of the security “recipe” that will accompany these industrial sector, for example, smart devices will evolve to IoT products. Together, they need to adapt to the market become active contributors to the business process improv- demands, innovate and improve processes, grasp new skills ing the revenues of equipment manufacturers, Internet-based and learn new methods, raise the awareness, and elaborate services providers, and application developers [3]. The IoT new training and curricula programs. security is the area of endeavour concerned with safeguard- The wearables are a hallmark of IoT, with designs that ing connected devices and networks in the Internet of things incorporate practical functions and features. From health to environment. fashion and ftness-oriented devices, wearables make tech- nology pervasive by interweaving it into daily life [105]. The main goal of these apparatus is to gather data such as heart- * Anca Jurcut beat, burned calories, body or environment temperature, and [email protected] so on and send it to the user for information purposes [8]. Tiberiu Niculcea The wearables need to store the data locally or to the cloud, [email protected] to generate historical reports about the achieved progress Pasika Ranaweera of the user. [email protected] Undoubtedly, the smart home collects as well an enor- Nhien-An Le-Khac mous amount of private information. For example, it may [email protected] store the records about the absence or movements of the 1 School of Computer Science, University College Dublin, inhabitants, the temperature levels of the house in diferent Dublin, Ireland SN Computer Science Vol.:(0123456789) 193 Page 2 of 19 SN Computer Science (2020) 1:193 rooms, the water and electricity usage, and so on [139]. Contribution Much like the emerging smart homes, the smart ofce or smart building automatically controls energy-consuming This paper addresses some of the trending problems in devices such as heaters and lights to achieve a better ef- the IoT, such as the inefective identity, access, and trust ciency without human intervention or micromanaging management, by presenting solutions that are available [131]. in the market. The review of the most common threats Smart cities use IoT devices like the connected sensors, and attacks raises the awareness about the importance of lights, and meters to collect and analyse data for further security, whereas exploring the reasons for safety breach usage in improving the infrastructure, public utilities and boosts the understanding about why the IoT devices are services, and much more [49]. The use cases are countless, still vulnerable. Depending on the fault tolerance capa- but arguably the most important implementation is the smart bilities of the apparatus in the aftermath of an attack, the grids, which helps tremendously with resource conservation remediation is not always possible, leading to the immedi- [19]. In the smart healthcare domain, IoT technologies have ate replacement of the device for a new one. The operation many applications, and some of them are the tracking of is costly, labour-intensive, and time-consuming. Therefore, objects and people, including patients, staf or ambulance, risk mitigation needs to be considered by everyone playing identifcation of individuals based on pervasive shared biom- a role in the market. Mitigating risk starts with preventing etrics, and automatic data gathering and sensing [141]. the threat from happening. This survey ofers guidance for The industrial Internet of things (IIoT), known as Indus- threat and attack prevention by: try 4.0, revolutionizes the manufacturing by enabling the addition and accessibility of far greater amounts of data, at • showing how to raise the level and posture of security higher speeds, and a lot more efciently than before [16]. • describing best practices for product design, manufac- IIoT networks of smart devices allow industrial organiza- turing and development tions to open big data containers and connect people, data, • advising the consumers and lawmakers to be security- and processes from the factory foors to the ofces of their minded executive leaders. Business managers can use IIoT data to • proposing a new design: Another important step in the get a full and accurate view of their enterprise health, which reduction of the risk is to innovate and seek improve- will assist them to make better decisions. ment. The IoT is also revolutionizing the supply chain manage- ment (SCM), a foundational business process that impacts This research proposes a new design, with mentions of nearly every enterprise [114]. Some of the possible use cases disruptive technologies in order to replace the usage of for SCM are asset tracking and feet management. Asset the IT-related system and network models in the IoT eco- tracking is possible based on radio frequency identifca- system. The study elaborates as well on the issues posed tion (RFID) tags or subscriber identity/identifcation mod- by the scalability, complexity, and management of the IoT ule (SIM) cards with global coverage. This facility allows networks and identifes solutions for addressing it. With a supply chain manager to locate where a product, truck, the advancement of quantum computing, big data and arti- or shipping container is, at one given time. Also, the feet fcial intelligence (AI), predictive data analytics plays an management enhances operators to know whether asset reli- important role not only in forecasting the future mainte- ability, availability, and efciency are all optimized. nance or the need for process optimization, but also in The Internet of things is present at every level and sector identifying device security weaknesses, data breach, and of the society and will be even more rooted in, to become the future possible attacks, before they even happen. new everyday normal. As IoT is everywhere, so should pri- vacy and security be, inbuilt from the schematics of a prod- uct designer, until the last technician to infuence in a way Paper Organization or the other, the fnite apparatus. These devices undoubt- edly will allow humans to become more efcient with their Rest of the paper is organized into fve sections. Sec- time, energy, and money in ways that are easy to forecast. tion “ Related Work” summarizes the related surveys Still, the lack of proper security frameworks and safeguards and researches that focus on IoT security aspects. In that could lead to privacy being compromised and valuable data section, we have attempted to classify the material under exfltration to become possible. The convenience that IoT general, identity management, access control, and trust products and services bring to the lives of individuals has management. General IoT threats and vulnerabilities are its price tag, and it could turn out to be a high bill in the end presented in Sect. “General IoT Threats, Attacks, andVul- if security is not taken seriously by all the players of the IoT nerabilities” where a summary of the threats and attacks ecosystem. SN Computer Science SN Computer Science (2020) 1:193 Page 3 of 19 193 are tabulated in Table 1. Our main contribution of this architecture, and hardware sepcand points out the security paper is mentioned in Sect. “Risk