Securing Our Future Homes: Smart Home Security Issues and Solutions

The Internet of Things, commonly known as IoT, is a new technology transforming businesses, individuals’ daily lives and the operation of entire countries. With more and more devices becoming equipped with IoT technology, smart homes are becoming increasingly popular. The components that make up a smart home are at risk for different types of attacks; therefore, security engineers are developing solutions to current problems and are predicting future types of attacks. This paper will analyze IoT smart home components, explain current security risks, and suggest possible solutions. According to “What is a Smart Home” (n.d.), a smart home is a home that always operates in consideration of security, energy, efficiency and convenience, whether anyone is home or not

IoT Sentinel: Automated Device-Type Identification for Security Enforcement in IoT

With the rapid growth of the Internet-of-Things (IoT), concerns about the security of IoT devices have become prominent. Several vendors are producing IP-connected devices for home and small office networks that often suffer from flawed security designs and implementations. They also tend to lack mechanisms for firmware updates or patches that can help eliminate security vulnerabilities. Securing networks where the presence of such vulnerable devices is given, requires a brownfield approach: applying necessary protection measures within the network so that potentially vulnerable devices can coexist without endangering the security of other devices in the same network. In this paper, we present IOT SENTINEL, a system capable of automatically identifying the types of devices being connected to an IoT network and enabling enforcement of rules for constraining the communications of vulnerable devices so as to minimize damage resulting from their compromise. We show that IOT SENTINEL is effective in identifying device types and has minimal performance overhead

But is it exploitable? Exploring how Router Vendors Manage and Patch Security Vulnerabilities in Consumer-Grade Routers

Millions of consumer-grade routers are vulnerable to security attacks. Router network attacks are dangerous and infections, presenting a serious security threat. They account for 80% of infected devices in the market, posing a greater threat than infected IoT devices and desktop computers. Routers offer an attractive target of attacks due to their gateway function to home networks, internet accessibility, and higher likelihood of having vulnerabilities. A major problem with these routers is their unpatched and unaddressed security vulnerabilities. Reports show that 30% of critical router vulnerabilities discovered in 2021 have not received any response from vendors. Why? To better understand how router vendors manage and patch vulnerabilities in consumer-grade routers, and the accompanying challenges, we conducted 30 semi-structured interviews with professionals in router vendor companies selling broadband and retail routers in the UK. We found that router professionals prioritize vulnerability patching based on customer impact rather than vulnerability severity score. However, they experienced obstacles in patching vulnerabilities due to outsourcing development to third parties and the inability to support outdated models. To address these challenges, they developed workarounds such as offering replacement routers and releasing security advisories. However, they received pushback from customers who were not technically capable or concerned about security. Based on our results, we concluded with recommendations to improve security practice in routers

Demystifying Internet of Things Security

Break down the misconceptions of the Internet of Things by examining the different security building blocks available in Intel Architecture (IA) based IoT platforms. This open access book reviews the threat pyramid, secure boot, chain of trust, and the SW stack leading up to defense-in-depth. The IoT presents unique challenges in implementing security and Intel has both CPU and Isolated Security Engine capabilities to simplify it. This book explores the challenges to secure these devices to make them immune to different threats originating from within and outside the network. The requirements and robustness rules to protect the assets vary greatly and there is no single blanket solution approach to implement security. Demystifying Internet of Things Security provides clarity to industry professionals and provides and overview of different security solutions What You'll Learn Secure devices, immunizing them against different threats originating from inside and outside the network Gather an overview of the different security building blocks available in Intel Architecture (IA) based IoT platforms Understand the threat pyramid, secure boot, chain of trust, and the software stack leading up to defense-in-depth Who This Book Is For Strategists, developers, architects, and managers in the embedded and Internet of Things (IoT) space trying to understand and implement the security in the IoT devices/platforms

Blockchain's adoption in IoT: The challenges, and a way forward

© 2018 Elsevier Ltd The underlying technology of Bitcoin is blockchain, which was initially designed for financial value transfer only. Nonetheless, due to its decentralized architecture, fault tolerance and cryptographic security benefits such as pseudonymous identities, data integrity and authentication, researchers and security analysts around the world are focusing on the blockchain to resolve security and privacy issues of IoT. However, presently, not much work has been done to assess blockchain's viability for IoT and the associated challenges. Hence, to arrive at intelligible conclusions, this paper carries out a systematic study of the peculiarities of the IoT environment including its security and performance requirements and progression in blockchain technologies. We have identified the gaps by mapping the security and performance benefits inferred by the blockchain technologies and some of the blockchain-based IoT applications against the IoT requirements. We also discovered some practical issues involved in the integration of IoT devices with the blockchain. In the end, we propose a way forward to resolve some of the significant challenges to the blockchain's adoption in IoT