Chapter 6 - Security

Abstract

Perhaps the greatest risk to achieving the IoT vision is ensuring that systems are secure by design. It is highly likely that many IoT systems will be attacked and proven demonstrably vulnerable during the early days of adoption. This is a result of the plethora of novel attack vectors available to malicious actors. It is important for system designers to fully comprehend the security risks and that security provisions will be needed across physical and cyber-aspects of these systems. Devices must be physically secure when deployed in the public domain, and the data and messages exchanged between them must be secured against malicious actors, minimally in terms of confidentiality and integrity. This chapter describes the basic mechanisms required to provide security against malicious actors. It outlines a number of potential threats against IoT systems and suggests some mitigating approaches following a layered approach. An overview of the state-of-the-art in security mechanisms specified by the main standards bodies is presented, in addition to discussing safety and privacy aspects critical to building trustworthy IoT applications and systems, finally highlighting prospective future developments in IoT security.