The Big Data of IoT – Understanding Privacy and Security Threats

A new technology coming up every day is making the world much more connected and a smaller place for us. Things are getting more and more digitalised. Every device that we see, we hold, we use is connected to the internet and there is a huge amount of  data all over the cloud. 

We have already gone through the series of blogs on IoT which must have shown you how the world is progressing towards the technology in a smarter way. The basic feature of each smart device is to be able to collect the data and send it over the internet for applications/software to analyse it so that anywhere in the world you can track the usage and other data received from the device. That sounds very simpler because it the veil of IoT devices.

Security of Data

Behind this,  a lot of things are involved in encryption, server protection and several types of protocols that enable a single function. It is projected that by the end of the year 2020 there will be 38.5billion devices connected to the internet which have already crossed 13.4 billion in 2015.

With so many devices sending and receiving data – the volume of data will be something that has never been experienced before. This will completely challenge the capture, storage, and analysis of data, something that will transform the types of database technologies we have.

Problems with current system

Let us see what are the implications around these connected devices and the data that is exchanged regularly over the internet.

• We need faster networks, a larger server for storage and huge bandwidth to carry the growth of internet traffic.
• Need of open ecosystems to host smart devices so that they can be interoperable like there is on Windows, iOS and Android ecosystems.
• The private networks created by vendors for interoperability among their own products are incompatible with others. This is a major challenge for integration across multiple solutions.
• It is very important to shift to IPv6 because IPv4, our current Internet protocol, cannot handle the growth in the number of interconnected devices on the Internet.

Need of Security for IoT

• Even today it is not easy to keep just two devices a Mobile and a PC fully updated all the time with the latest version of OS and Application, just imagine a situation when we are loaded with many devices around us and keeping them free from the security bugs. Don’t know how would we deal with it then?
• The volume of data will be so much that it would be difficult to track and identify the suspicious traffic over the network. Missing such incidents will make a huge dent over the larger network.
• Even today the number of cyber attacks are so much that there is not even one day when we don’t have an attempt to barge the internet security. With the rise of IoT, such phishing and attacks will be definitely on the rise.
• IPv6 is still not fully perfected even though it has been there for quite some time, leave apart its complete implementation. With IoT in place, the threat is new and unknown. We might something that has much higher and effective security than that of IPv6.

Solutions to the Security

• Secure booting: Secure Boot is a technology where the system firmware checks that the system boot loader is signed with a cryptographic key authorized by a database contained in the firmware. With adequate signature verification in the next stage boot loader(s), kernel, and, potentially, user space, it is possible to prevent the execution of unsigned code. This is very important to ensure the connected device is secure and trusted.

• Access control: It refers to applying control over access to the system and its parts. A role-based access control built into the OS limit the privileges of device components and applications ensuring access only to the resources required to  do the job. If somehow any component is compromised, access control will  ensure that the invader has minimal access to other parts of the system. Minimal access required to perform an action should be authorized so as to minimize the impact of any violation of security.

• Device authentication: While it is easy to get user credentials for authorisation the code of device authorisation is a bit complex but it works on similar technique as of user authentication. On the basis of user id and a password of the device, it authenticates itself and gets authorised to transmit the data. This way no device need a user to make way for its credentials.

• Firewalling and IPS: Just like enterprise IT protocols, every device also needs a firewall or deep packet inspection capability to control traffic that is destined to terminate at the device. The importance of device based IPS is because the needs of the device can be different from that of the whole network. Example, in the case of smart energy grid which has its own set of protocols governing how devices talk to each other.

We, at LetsNurture not just provides you Mobile and Web Solutions but also gets you a reliable cloud server which can help you keep your own and third-party data safe and secure. Just mail us or get in touch with our executives.  

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