Six Key Factors to Reduce Security Risks in IoT Devices

The Internet of Things (IoT) technology is currently in its infancy, but its reputation for weak security has already spread. As more connected devices continue to flood into our daily business and personal lives, IoT technology solution providers should adhere to the following six principles to provide a more reliable level of security.

IoT technology has been rapidly developing at an exponential rate over the past few years, and the popularity of new solutions is unstoppable. According to an analysis by Gartner, the number of IoT devices worldwide is expected to exceed 4 billion by the end of 2016, and this number will surge to 20 billion by 2020. From a market perspective, connected devices in enterprise environments will bring over $868 billion in spending that year, indicating that the impact—and risks—of IoT technology have already begun to manifest. However, in the face of the booming development of IoT technology, manufacturers developing related products must ensure that their solutions do not pose risks to end-user security or privacy.

With IoT spending on the rise and demand continually climbing, those manufacturers who first enter the market often prioritize speed to market over security guarantees—this undoubtedly puts users in a difficult position. Through the following six considerations, manufacturers and developers should be able to effectively reduce risks and enhance the security level of IoT devices.

1. Physical Security – The physical security of connected devices is crucial. Developers should incorporate integrated anti-tampering measures from the design phase to ensure that products cannot be decoded by malicious individuals. Additionally, ensuring that all data related to identity, authentication, and account information is erased if the device is compromised will prevent attackers from exploiting this information. If PII is stored within the device, the ability to remotely wipe it becomes a necessary feature.

2. Say No to Backdoors – To this day, we can easily add backdoors to devices for monitoring or to meet law enforcement requests. However, this practice is not advisable as it severely compromises the integrity and security of end-user information. Manufacturers should ensure that there is no malicious code or backdoors within the products, and that device UDIDs cannot be copied, monitored, or captured. This way, we can ensure that devices will not leak important information during the online registration process due to monitoring or illegal eavesdropping mechanisms.

3. Secure Coding – IoT developers should strictly adhere to secure coding practices and consider them an essential part of the device software development process. By focusing on quality assurance and vulnerability identification/remediation, we can simplify the protection work in the development lifecycle while easily reducing potential risks.

4. Authentication and Device Identification – Providing a unique identity for each device along with an ideal security authentication mechanism will enable the device itself to have secure connectivity and a backend control system and management console. If each device has its unique identity, enterprises will be able to verify whether the claimed identity of the current communication device is legitimate. To achieve this goal, we need to use individual device identification solutions such as PKI.

5. Encryption – When using IoT solutions, enterprises must encrypt the traffic between different devices and backend servers. Ensure that all operational commands are encrypted and that their integrity is guaranteed through signatures or strong coding. Additionally, any sensitive user data collected by IoT devices should also be encrypted.

6. Simplified Update Processes – Establish easy upgrade capabilities for devices, so that bugs and security updates can be deployed and managed more easily. Sometimes firmware update failures can lead to difficult-to-solve situations, but what’s more alarming is that some manufacturers do not even consider the design requirement for receiving firmware updates. Ensuring a consistent update process will make firmware deployment more flexible while helping developers continue to release security patches for existing product lines while easily creating new models.

It is clear that IoT technology has emerged and will continue to exist; however, most IoT-related companies and data breach incidents have brought negative impacts to consumers, and manufacturers face a huge call and pressure to strengthen the security of their products. Through the above steps, IoT technology suppliers should be able to ensure the security level of their solutions, thereby maintaining a competitive advantage in the market as IoT becomes increasingly popular and security becomes the top consideration for buyers in the future.

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