Security and Privacy Issues in the Internet of Things

Introduction

There have been a lot of technical breakthroughs which have made people to adapt to automated technology and make their living easier. Through the sensor network, IoTs collect a significant amount of data. By 2025, the IIoT is estimated to produce “75.44 billion devices” and generate “79.4 zettabytes” data (Columbus, 2016). Because of additional sensors, higher computational power, and dependable communication, IoTs are rapidly increasing and will also increase in the upcoming years, which is shown in Figure 1. The increased use of IoTs has resulted in the unavoidable exchange of personal information, potentially leading to a data breach.

Figure 1.

Increase in the number of IoT devices(Khanna & Kaur, 2019)

Data collection, Data transfer, and Data evaluation are the three important stages of the IoT system. The first stage i.e the data collection stage gathers data and helps in transmission, it includes sensor antennae and microcontrollers. The gateway and IoT hub or network, is utilized in the second stage where data transfer is done. The last stage has User interfaces and the back-end system, such as the cloud which is used for data analysis. Critical information from IoT devices will leak if there is a breach in these stages. Due to the lack of an effective encryption and authentication system, much vulnerability in IoT devices are recently emerged. Unfortunately, no complete security solutions to protect against security assaults are currently available in the market.

Background

Evolution of IoT

A computer network, which was invented in the early 1960s, allowed two computers to communicate with each other. TCP/IP was introduced in the 1980s. In the 1980s, people began using the internet. Later, in 1991, the World Wide Web (WWW) became available, increasing the popularity of the internet. Business started happening online. The term “mobile internet” was introduced, where the mobile phones were connected to the internet. Through the internet the end users were connected via connecting devices as the result of their use of social networking. As indicated in Figure 2, the next stage in IoT is to connect all of the things in an environment and interact through the internet. The internet is connected to all smart objects in IoT. With the help of humans, they converse with each other. The IoT is quickly becoming the most popular and well-known IT concept. It draws users' attention by allowing them to connect from anyplace in the world and by giving each thing a unique identity (Aggarwal, 2012).

Figure 2.

Evolution of Internet of Things (Gomathi et al., 2018)

Internet Of Things

The technology is playing a very significant role in our lives today. Today, the Internet has widespread to everywhere. Internet has not only changed the lifestyle of the people but has also created a comfortable life. The way of our living has been greatly influenced by the introduction of new technologies. The discovery of internet has revolutionized the world. At present the whole world depends on the internet and computer to perform various operations.