Addressing Security Issues and Standards in Internet of Things

Introduction

With the rapid development of Internet technology and communications technology, our lives are gradually led into an imaginary space of virtual world. People can chat, work, shopping, keeps pets and plants in the virtual world provided by the network. However, human beings live in a real world; human activities cannot be fully implemented through the services in the imaginary space. It is the limitation of imaginary space that restricts the development of Internet to provide better services. To remove these constraints, a new technology is required to integrate imaginary space and real-world on a same platform which is called as Internet of Things (IoTs). Internet of Things (IoT) represents the extension and evolution of the Internet, which has great potential and prospects for modern intelligent service and applications. Based on a large number of low-cost sensors and wireless communication, the sensor network technology puts forward new demands to the Internet technology. It will bring huge changes to the future society, change our way of life and business models. The ability to connect, communicate with, and remotely manage an incalculable number of networked, automated devices via the Internet is becoming pervasive, from the factory floor to the hospital operating room to the residential basement. The transition from closed networks to enterprise IT networks to the public Internet is accelerating at an alarming pace and justly raising alarms about security. In the coming day’s world will witness a massive surge of Internet. In his article (Rossi 2015). it is predicted that by 2020 more than 20 billion devices will be connected through Internet. Cisco has predicted about 50 billion devices will be associated with Internetworking (Evans 2011). The, term Internet of Things (IoT) has first been used by Bill Gates in 1995 (Gates 1995). The IoT technology draws huge changes in everyone’s everyday life. In the IoTs era, the short-range mobile transceivers will be implanted in variety of daily requirements. The connections between people and communications of people will grow and between objects to objects at any time, in any location. The efficiency of information management and communications will arise to a new high level (ITU 2005). The dynamic environment of IoTs introduces unseen opportunities for communication, which are going to change the perception of computing and networking. As we become increasingly reliant on intelligent, interconnected devices in every aspect of our lives, security becomes an important issue that need to be addressed. The definition and scope of IoT have changed and its coverage has been greatly expanded (Liang et. al 2011). Now, the IoT is proverbially applied in the field of modern service, such as healthcare, smart environments, personal and social, entertainment, transportation and logistics (Atzori et.al 2010; Liang et al. 2011; Tong, Ban 2014,) .Multiple attacks have already been reported in the past against different embedded devices (Bansal 2014; Wright 2011) and we can expect many more in the IoT domain. Security is one of the foremost concerns raised by different stakeholders in Internet of Things which has the potential to slow down its adoption. While security has always been a concern since the computers started connecting to each other, the impact was limited to stealing money and intellectual property. But Internet of things adds a completely new dimension to this where the devices performing critical tasks, if insecure, can be manipulated to the devastating effects. The impact could be on public safety, environment, productivity and many others. Apart from benefits of IoTs, there are several security and privacy concerns at different layers. The privacy and security implications of such an evolution should be carefully considered to the promising technology. The protection of data and privacy of users has been identified as one of the key challenges in the IoT relies on the principle of the extensive processing of data through sensors that are designed to communicate unobtrusively and exchange data in a seamless way; the exponential volume of data that can be collected, and its further combination, its storage in the cloud and the use of predictive analytics tools can transform data into something useful but also allow companies - and potentially malware - to have very detailed profiles of individuals; and the sharing and combination of data through cloud services will increase the locations and jurisdictions where personal data resides.