Analyzing The Various IoT Security Challenges In Detail

The Internet of Things (IoT) is one of the most trending technologies in this period of a technological revolution. It is simply the center innovation impacting vehicles, savvy homes, and everything modern around us. Today, we will talk about IoT Security Challenges.

IoT makes a point to interface everything that you can see around to the Internet, which ranges from new applications to various smart devices made by extraordinary IoT developers.

But the question is about the security challenges in the Internet of Things? Any Professional iot application development company would describe it as the biggest challenge. To the fact, it’s presently the least developed part of cybersecurity.

Therefore the technology is yet to reach the peaks of its development. And all these lead to a few Internet of Things challenges.

Noteworthy IoT Security Issues

So, in this article, we will be going through a few important IoT security challenges. Let deep dive into the article.

Brute-Force Issue

The largest and most dangerous DDoS attack is Mirai Botnet. This is one of the threats that come when shipping the devices with default passwords and users forget to change it. Getting a solution for this is an important aspect to have a look at.

Across the globe, there are many governments which advise manufacturers to be careful against selling any such IoT devices with easily hackable passwords and username. IoT devices with weak credentials are vulnerable to Brute-Force issues.

One of the reasons for the success of Mirai malware is this drawback of the IoT devices. In short, any Web Development For IoT solution that puts factory default credentials on their device is putting their business as well as customer’s trust in risk.

IoT Malware & Ransomware

With the rise in the manufacturing and use of IoT devices, the risk to the malware and ransomware also increases.

The traditional ransomware completely depends on blocking the encryption and moving users completely out of the device.

There is an ongoing merger of Ransomware and Malware which becomes a major IoT security challenge. This attack especially focuses on limiting or completely disabling an IoT device in order to steal the complete data.

For instance, a simple IP camera that has the ability to gather important information with a wide range of locations.

Later with these deadly attacks, sensitive information can be blocked to get access to the data. The hackers even demand ransom to unlock the locked device.

Data Security & Privacy Concerns

Privacy and data security are one of the biggest threats that most of the technologies are facing these days. It is a major Internet of Things security issue in today’s interconnected globe.

As we all know that the data is continuously being transmitted, stored, and processed every day for a wide range of IoT devices.

Sometimes these data are even sold to the companies which lead to ultimate security issues. Utmost care of the data is to be taken in order to avoid any IoT security challenges in the future.

The security should have a major focus on the data of web, mobile, and cloud devices.

Outdated Hardware

As already said every day thousands of new IoT devices are launched in the market. But with the launching of new IoT devices, IoT security challenges arise for the older ones.

Here, the old IoT devices do not get an update, that is they keep on working in the old environment, unaware of the new changes which lead to a security threat.

As the systems become old, it becomes easy for the hacker to access the data. IoT Applications and Examples are proof of that.

Most of the IoT companies refuse to change the hardware of their IoT devices with changing technology therefore the threat of devices being hacked increases.

Remote Vehicle Access

Apart from all of the above IoT security challenges, the cars processed with IoT face the biggest challenge of being hijacked.

We all are aware of the fact that smart cars are on the verge of becoming a dream to reality with the help of a number of technologies,  of which IoT is one.

However, as per the IoT associates, it even comes with a huge risk of car hijack. This can be one of the most dangerous situations as the hacker can get remote access to your car. We can even call it a life-threatening situation for you.

Small IoT Attacks

The largest IoT security issue faced was Mirai botnet. This was the most dangerous botnet framed to date.

The small IoT attacks caused a huge loss to many companies as well as the users. They might seem to do a small defect but the causes are larger than expected.

It is even expected that more such micro breaches will take place in the near future. Hackers are getting hands-on such attacks which will ultimately cause a major IoT security problem.

Just a single small IoT attack can lead to millions and millions of data leaks of IoT devices.

AI & Automation

IoT devices are becoming more and more used by millions of people. Sometimes, it may happen that issues may arise in handling such huge data of millions of users. And that is where AI (Artificial Intelligence) comes into the picture.

To handle this huge amount of data, AI and Automation came into the picture. These technologies are connected to the IoT system to manage the larger database.

But everything has its pros and cons, therefore it even raises some of the IoT security challenges. Using automation may lead to thoughts of changes in the way of using data.

Automation brings a lot of ease but along with it even security factor can get compromised sometimes, so in order to cut down the complexity in the concern hire offshore development team who can extend their core expertise and experience for providing secure and potent solutions.

The major effects are seen in the healthcare, power, and transportation industry.

Home Invasions

The biggest security challenge in the Internet of Things is home invasions. As the use of IoT devices has increased in homes and offices, it has given rise to a huge number of home automation. The use of home automation in a large scale has given rise to IoT security issues.

The home automation threat can lead to the exposure of the IP address which ultimately pins the address of your home.

Later, these crucial pieces of information are sold to underground websites that can be sometimes dangerous.

If you’re using an unsecured IoT device, then it may happen that your house may lead to some unwanted threats.

Lack Of Encryption

Encryption is one of the best ways to handle hacking attacks. You can easily prevent them from accessing the data with the help of encryption.

To the fact, most of the IoT devices lack the phase of encryption, which leads to ultimate IoT security issues.

These IoT devices lack in security, storage, and even processing in the traditional computers. And all this results in the high-level threats of the security attack.

The hackers have the ability to easily manipulate the IoT systems and get important information. All in all, IoT devices lack encryption which ultimately is a great risk to companies as well as users.

Untrustworthy Communication

There are millions of IoT devices that send messages to the users without any type of security encryption. It is known as one of the biggest IoT security challenges out there faced by many users.

Therefore, it is high time to take some important measures against the encryption of high-level IoT devices. IoT Challenges are increasing day by day. So, getting rid of that is necessary.

In order to avoid this IoT security issue, the best step to be taken is to use transport encryption and other standards like TLS. Open Source IoT Frameworks can also help you in this regard.

Another thing that you can do here is using different networks that come with different devices. You can even use the private communication channel to ensure that data is confidential and secure.

More IoT Devices

There are over 20 billion IoT devices across the globe in the present time and this number is going to increase in the future too.

And more IoT devices lead to more security issues coming in every day. With an increase in IoT devices, a lot of security challenges come into the picture.

There is a threat of security and managing such huge devices and its data is quite a tedious task.  Therefore, major steps are to be taken in order to overcome this IoT security challenge.

Phishing Attacks

Phishing attacks have always remained a major concern for most of the technologies. IoT devices are the latest target of phishing attacks these days.

Here, hackers will send some signals to the IoT devices which are suffering any complications or are defected.

Later, all data is being hacked by the hacker and sold to some of the companies or low websites. This is the normal form of an attack you can think of.

The only thing that could help against such Phishing attacks is proper security for IoT devices when they are built.

Insufficient Testing & Updation

As per the reports and facts, at present, there are more than 50 billion connected devices present across the globe.

This huge number of IoT devices comes up with lots of costs. The biggest IoT security issues faced by these devices is they may get an update or may even fail for any updates.

This ultimately means that when the IoT device is brought by the customer it is secured, but as it doesn’t get any update it turns insecure with the passing time.

This will result in the IoT security issues. Earlier the computer system was dealing with the same problem which was later solved by automatic updates.

Some of the IoT devices even failed for perfection testing, which became a major cause for the failure of companies.

Outdated Legacy Security

There are IoT security challenges with the interconnected legacy system. With the number of growing IoT devices, the legacy system may seem to be out of control. There is no update in the previous devices which ultimately leads to threats.

A breach in such IoT devices may lead to higher risks and losses to the companies. There must be an essential solution.

Manage Vulnerabilities

Managing IoT Security Problems becomes quite a tedious task for many companies. The vulnerabilities include identifying defected devices as soon as possible.

It even includes knowing almost every movement of the data like the data being accessed by the users or data that is compromised and more.

Managing all these things requires huge efforts and time. But with the help of a few tools, all things can be managed easily. The tools even help in knowing the fake data of your IoT devices.

Insecure Ecosystem Interface

Sometimes it may happen that we may neglect the minor defects that we saw in any device. But this may turn to be some of the biggest IoT security challenges in the future. Therefore, you need to take the utmost care for the ecosystem interface.

To avoid any type of security issue, just take care of the IoT devices. Keep enhancing or upgrading your devices with the new trends to save it from any major attacks.

Weak Default Password

As we already discussed, weak and default passwords are the IoT security issues that should be taken into consideration. Most of the companies always recommend changing passwords after buying any of the IoT devices.

But most of the users neglect it or just forget doing it. This could lead to a greater risk for sensitive data and even for the home or office security.

As a weak and easy to guess password can be found by any hacker and you know what can happen next.

IoT Botnets For Cryptocurrency

There is a huge rise in the use of Cryptocurrency, and after its success, the hackers tempted to cash into the crypto craze.

The tremendous increase in the hacking of blockchain has left everyone shocked. The main reason which leads to easy hacking of blockchain is its app development thing and the way it is connected to IoT devices.

IoT applications, structures, etc that rely on the cryptocurrency and blockchain thing comes as IoT security risks.

Even these technologies are in their development phase and trying to come out as a fully secured technology.

The biggest risk to these technologies is from Blockchain breaches, IoT botnet miners, and more.

Unreliable Threat Detection Method

Every enterprise has a set of various methods for detecting the data breaches. Some of them include monitoring user activity, common indicators, other security protocols and much more.

Such IoT security issues even happen due to the complexity of any feature that arises in a device.

However, due to the threat growing among the IoT devices, small and less reliable tests will never be enough. This is one of the major Security Challenges in Internet of Things.

Enhancing the threat detection method is an essential point to take note of.

Infrequent Updates

To ensure the security of any devices, a proper update of the device with the ongoing trends is important.

The IT professionals have to ensure that all applications, web, computer, and devices are up-to-date with the latest trends. Many IT professionals are also using Node JS For IoT App Development.

But the same is not the case with the IoT devices, they lack a proper update every time. And this has led to an Internet of Things security concerns.

You need to take this into consideration to avoid the failure of the IoT devices.

Financial Breaches

For all those companies who use IoT devices for making the payment need to be careful with the IoT security issues that come with it.

There are high chances that hackers may steal your money when making a transaction through an IoT device.

It is one of the financial breaches from the Internet of Things that you need to take care of.

To stop such financial breaches, organizations have started integrating the Machine learning or blockchain concept with the Internet of Things.

When these technologies interconnected, there is a reduction in the threat of financial breaches.

Autonomous System For Data Management

To the fact, from the data collection point of view, there will be a huge amount of data generated every month. And, sometimes it becomes too tough to manage such a huge amount of data.

This can be one of the IoT security challenges which most of the organizations are trying to overcome.

The Internet of Things has started integrating AI and Autonomous tools to handle such a huge amount of data. But the use of these tools even is risky as they are still in their growing stage.

Secured Constrained Device

IoT is an emerging technology. So, there is low storage and memory for the devices.

Therefore, the devices with less storage and memory operated at low powers. For instance, some of the IoT devices are running on the batteries.

When we see in terms of IoT security concerns, running devices at such low powers can be risky.

As these devices need to be under observation to avoid any issues. The IoT devices must be ready to face a power analysis attack which leads to a security issue.

Read also: Why Node.js For IoT Is A Picture Perfect Story?

Ensuring High Availability

This IoT security challenge requires to consider as soon as possible. Somewhere the IoT devices lack in provisioning high availability to its users.

To avoid any Internet of Things Security Issues here, IoT developers need to ensure the availability of the IoT data to mobile apps.

All needed things made available in order to enhance the user experience for an IoT device.

With that, the devices protected from security threats and physical tampering. The devices must contain redundancy signals to avoid any failures in the signal.

Harikrishna Kundariya

CEO, eSparkBiz

Harikrishna Kundariya, a marketer, developer, IoT, chatbot and blockchain savvy, designer, co-founder, Director of eSparkBiz @Software Development Company where you can Hire Software Developers. His 14+ experience enables him to provide digital solutions to new start-ups based on Web app development.