The Security Challenge Posed by the Internet of Things: How to Rectify Them

Nowadays, more and more devices are driven through IoT and this rise of IoT-connected devices has led to the rise of more concerns and challenges.
But this issue does not mean that it is the end of the road for IoT.
With the support of the right security framework, IoT devices will be able to eliminate the risk of any potential threats associated with the Internet of Things.

Below are some major security challenges and how you can rectify them.
Test for Vulnerabilities and Incidents
Despite having a good security level for IoT system, there are certain vulnerabilities and breaches that are unavoidable.
How can you discover if your IoT system has been compromised or not?
As there are huge numbers of devices, apps, services, and protocols contributing to IoT system, it can become very difficult to identify when security has been breached.
You can avail the help of a well-established security testing company so that dedicated resources can be spent on checking and analyzing the systems.
Authorize and Authenticate Devices
IoT systems come with authorization and authentication which can pose critical security issues.
IoT devices that need access to gateways and upstream services should establish their identity first.
Furthermore, there are various other IoT devices that fall under the security breach when it comes to authentication and authorization.
For instance, using an unchanged password or using a weak base password for authentication.
Therefore, to provide better security IoT devices must need to enable two-factor authentication (2FA) and enforce users to create and use strong password base or certificates.
Also, the IoT platform can provide device authorization to have a limited access to services throughout the system that can eliminate the risk of unauthorized access.
Secure Constraint Devices
Most of the constraint devices usually operate on lower power.
These devices have limited access to memory or processing ability that often leads to lower performance.
Security threats often rely on a powerful system that is capable of performing complex encryption.
So, these constrained devices pose a potential security threat in transmitting data.
Often these devices are more likely to get a power analysis attack that could lead to reverse engineer of algorithms which are used in IoT constrained devices.
To overcome this threat IoT device should need to deploy multilayer security by using firewalls or segregating devices onto separate networks.              
Manage Device Updates
Updating the firmware system including various security patches in IoT devices could lead to major security challenges.

For instance, while updating the firmware you need to keep track of all the devices and updates across different platforms including network through which multiple devices communicate together using networking protocols.
Furthermore, there are lots of devices that do not support online updates, so these devices need to be updated manually by pulling them out from the production unit.
So, you need to keep a track of the updates and versions that are deployed across all the IoT devices failing which can cause retirement in any security patches.
More Secured Communication
Security challenges are often faced by IoT devices when they are communicating through a network.
Once, these devices are fully secured the next challenge which has to be overcome is secured communication across the network.
Communication of IoT devices between different services and cloud applications is often associated with security risks that may compromise the security system of the IoT device.
Many devices do not use encryption before sending the message over the network that causes a security challenge.
To overcome this challenge, the best practice is to use transport encryption or to adopt TLS that offers secure communications across the network.
Using this standard will enable you to enhance private communication, security and it will also ensure the data transmitted should remain confidential.
Ensure Data Privacy and Integrity
While data is transmitted across the network, it is important to ensure the wherever the data ends must be processed securely and stored.

Also Read: How To Do Security Testing: Best Practices

If data is inappropriately accessed, it can compromise the integrity of data and may face security issues in the future.
Thus, best practice to eliminate this issue is to implement data privacy that will anonymize the valuable data and redact it before it is stored.
Data which is not required should be securely disposed of.
Also, there are various other technologies that ensure data integrity by offering a scalable and resilient approach.
Blockchain which is a decentralized platform will help you to ensure the integrity of IoT data.
Secure Web, Mobile, and Cloud Application
 IoT devices also use various services including cloud applications, web or mobile to access and process data.
Thus, it becomes essential to provide a more secure approach to IoT security.
Before creating IoT application you need to ensure to apply more secured engineering practices to eliminate any security risks.
Similar to devices that use secured authentication to gain access to services, applications should also adopt 2FA (which is a multilayered security) and use a more secure password for authenticating services.
Ensure High Availability
As more and more people have relied on IoT and processing their day-to-day work, it becomes essential for developers to consider the high availability of IoT data.
People, devices, and application use IoT data to access and access to services which is managed by IoT systems.
The failure in accessing this data resulting from device failure or connectivity failure can lead to another critical security challenge like denial of service attacks.
The impact of unavailability of data can cause a huge loss in revenue, or damage to the system, or even loss of life.

For instance, Traffic control, pacemakers or insulin pumps are all associated with IoT platform and to ensure high availability, devices should be secured against any vulnerable attack.
These devices must include redundancy, flexibility and fault tolerance to overcome this issue.