Security in Cloud of Things (CoT)

Introduction

Through the years, the era of information technology and pervasiveness of digital technologies have showed an exponential growth. The rising number of technological improvements offers a wealth of new services. Recently, Internet of Things (IoT) has attracted attention since it involves several applications, including smart grid, control systems, remote healthcare, smart mobility, traffic flow management and so on. In addition, it is expected to grow in terms of its deployment as well as its applicability in various application areas. The term IoT was coined by Kevin Ashton in 1999, which meant any entity that has a chip placed inside it or addressable on a network with an IP-address and can connect to wireless or wired network infrastructure (Gratton, 2013). These are everyday objects with ubiquitous connectivity and communicating and operating constantly. The use of IoT leads to a smart world with ubiquitous computing and provides services that enables remote access and intelligent functionality (Chaouchi, 2013). IoT enables real-time analysis of data flows that could improve efficiency, reliability and economy of systems. For example, connecting all appliances in the smart house can save electricity by efficient monitoring. Thus, IoT provides convenience in day-to-day living and makes an intelligent use of resources in a home (Parwekar, 2011).

CoT represents an important extension of IoT. CoT refers to the virtualization of IoT infrastructure to provide monitoring and control. IoT deployments typically generate large amounts of data that require computing as well as storage. A cloud infrastructure that can provide these resources can effectively offload the computing and storage requirements within the IoT network to the cloud. An added benefit is the ability to virtualize the underlying IoT infrastructure to provide monitoring and control from a single point. An application using IoT could therefore become a smart application. A CoT connects heterogeneous appliances to the virtual cloud domain. Both tangible and intangible objects (home appliances, sensor-based and network-enabled) and surrounding people can be integrated on a network or into a set of networks (Sun, Zhang, & Li, 2012).

CoT suggests a model consisting of a set of services (or commodities) that are delivered just like the traditional commodities. In other words, CoT can provide a virtual infrastructure which can integrate analytic tools, monitoring devices and visualization platforms (Parwekar, 2011). Moreover, CoT is a recent technological breakthrough that can enable end-to-end service provisioning for users and businesses to directly access applications on demand from anywhere, anytime (Sun et al., 2012).The emerging CoT services will enable a new generation and intelligent use of a collection of applications that will be fed with real time and analysis.

CoT, as a connected universe of things, can become a tangible reality in the future. Connected devices and things, ranging from sensors to public transport, will send huge of data that should be effectively managed and processed. However, cyber-attacks on critical infrastructure, recently, have highlighted security as a major requirement for CoT. A compromise of the CoT can have drastic effects, sometimes nation-wide and on people’s lives. So, a CoT infrastructure should be secure. This chapter will present an overview of some of the concepts related to CoT. After introducing CoT, it continues to present the architecture and the applications of CoT. In addition, the security requirements for the CoT are discussed and the security challenges are highlighted. Specifically, the threats to the CoT are discussed. The chapter concludes with a discussion on the existing security solutions and a mention of the open research issues.